


Whiplash

by followthefreedomtrail



Series: Matters of Life and Death [1]
Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Angry Sex, Canon-Typical Violence, Drunkenness, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual mangoes, F/M, Might just pretend Arthur never gets sick, Reluctant crime, Robbery, but not too reluctant ya know cuz we need those fat stacks, if mangoes are a metaphor for a decently happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2020-03-02 18:34:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 22,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18816655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/followthefreedomtrail/pseuds/followthefreedomtrail
Summary: Arthur Morgan meets a lone outlaw, a wanted woman, and his pursuit of her isn’t purely a matter of money.





	1. I.

With practiced efficiency, she scouts the shelves for medicine, coffee, food. Anything useful. Anything worth something. It isn’t her first robbery and certainly won’t be her last. She noiselessly tucks vials of health tonics between the clothes in her pack to keep them from clinking together or breaking.

She’d really, truly regret someone interrupting her in this town. It’s one of the few without wanted posters with crude sketches of her face plastered everywhere. There’s no bounty on her head, no one hunting her down. She can almost pretend she’s an innocent when she walks down the muddy streets beside unsuspecting townsfolk. Yes, it would be a damn shame, she thinks, to add Valentine to the list.

It’s why, when the doorknob squeaks as it turns and the jingle of spurs echoes through the otherwise silent general store, she sighs through her nose as she unholsters her revolver and pulls back the hammer, aiming at the intruder.

Quick on the draw, she finds herself staring down his barrel as well and just above it, he wears a knowing smirk.

An impasse.

Even with her bandana on, even with her trousers on, even with her long hair slicked back into a low bun beneath her hat, she’s still recognizably female. And female outlaws are few and far between. The stranger hardly pauses at all before he identifies her and regains the upper hand.

“Well now. You must be Miss Thievin’ Maggie,” he chuckles, low and throaty. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.”

She squints to make him out through the dark. His features stir a vague recollection in the back of her mind but nothing concrete. “The hell are you?”

“Ain’t no concern of yours, darlin’. Let’s do this the easy way. Drop the gun.”

Her eyes flick to the bag at her feet. Nearly full. It will last her weeks if she can make it out with the loot she’s already stowed away.

“What a lucky bastard I am. Come in here looking for valuables and end up with somethin’ even better,” he drawls, circling her. “Bounty’s biggest in Strawberry. $7,000.”

And then, she places him. Like a lightning bolt, she suddenly knows him and the playing field is evened.

“Arthur Morgan showing his ugly mug in Strawberry. After what you did? You’re dumber than they say.”

He frowns and it looks downright feral in the moonlight. “Don’t have to be me turnin’ you in.”

She steps back as he steps forward but it’s too dark for her to see the gap in the wood panels. The heel of her boot lodges and she stumbles back on her ass hard enough to feel the impending bruises already.

He stands over her now, finger on the trigger and still itching to shoot. Likely would have if she wasn’t worth so damn much alive.

“The hell’d you do for a $7,000 bounty, Miss Marlowe?”

His boots are close enough to her own that one strong foot knocks his legs out from under him and he falls. As soon as he’s on his back, she’s ripping his gun away and straddling him, two pistols pressed into his chest.

“Killed a few men,” she says calmly, catching her breath. “Better ones than you so don’t think I won’t fill your chest with these bullets, Mister Morgan.”

He flips his palms up, surrendered but not really. His left hand inches towards her gun but he can’t push his luck tonight. Before he gets close enough to tempt her trigger finger, the creaking of floor boards freezes them both.

“ _Shit_. Look what you did now, got the law on us,” she whispers angrily, rolling off of him and grabbing her bag.

Arthur sits up carefully. “Me? How d’ya figure this is my fault?” Crouching, he sneaks towards the back window and wrenches it open. “You was the one robbin’ the place.”

He gestures for her to go first and, bag slung over her shoulder, she slips from the store through the window. Arthur follows and vaults himself out onto the ground behind her with an almighty thump.

 _Subtle._ She rolls her eyes. How he isn’t already behind bars is beyond her.

Their horses, hitched side by side, whinnie at the return of their owners. Magdelyn is throwing her leg over her red Andalusian just as the officers find their way into the general store. One step behind, always.

She digs her heels into Ember and she bolts forward. Arthur, not to be outdone, catches up and keeps close to her side.

If he were a better man, she might think it was to protect her. But men like Arthur think only in dollar signs.

The whip of the wind as she rides throws her hair like a lash across her cheek. “Oh, and I’m supposed to believe you was just there to bring me to justice!”

“Stop them degenerates!”

They both look behind them at the rapidly gaining officers on horseback. Magdelyn leans into her horse, pouring all of her focus into distinguishing trail from tree line as they accelerate. A crash now means capture and she isn’t keen on the idea of spending her night in a cell.

A gunshot rings out, zipping past her and clipping her arm.

She hardly feels it in the heat of the moment. Later, it will sting, but only later. Later is for whiskey and bandages. Now, there is only the pounding of hooves against dirt, churning up clouds of dust in their wake.

But Arthur— _damn him_ —has the smoother side of the worn path. She doesn’t notice the rock jutting up above the earth until Ember is tripping and she flies from her saddle in an arc to land on her side a dozen yards away.

She raises herself onto the heels of her hands and groans. One feels broken, blinding pain shooting up into her forearm.

 _You’ve done it this time, Maggie,_ she curses herself. _Delivered to the law at the hands of that selfish bastard—_

Hooves trot into her field of vision and she looks up to an outstretched hand.

_—Arthur Morgan._

“Get on, woman!” he shouts impatiently. “We ain’t got time for all ’a this.”

One glance behind her and she can see the law closing in on them, lagging by only a few miles and loading their weapons. She shoots him a glare, prickly as she can muster, before she takes his hand and he hauls her up in front of him on the saddle.

The only thing worse than Arthur Morgan is prison. She’s short on options and he will have to do.

“Yah!” he orders, voice tense, as he snaps the reins.

Arthur knows this area. He leaves their pursuers behind quickly, swallowed in the dirt storm they leave as the only proof they were there.

That, and the empty shelves of the general store.

After miles without seeing a single soul, she sternly orders him to return her to her horse, or at least where she’d left her.

“And give up seven grand? I don’t think so, Miss Maggie,” he laughs against her ear. “Naw, you’re comin’ with me.”

 _Such hubris._ Enough for both of them, enough to crawl under her skin and grate her nerves. It will be his downfall. If not from her, then someone else. But she wants that privilege for herself enough to yank the reins still clutched in Arthur’s hands back hard and pull them into her stomach.

His horse shakes its head defiantly, rearing up as it suddenly slows.

“Chrissakes, woman,” Arthur bellows, “You tryna get us both killed?”

He wrestles her hands away from the reins, cussing all the while, and his horse brays beneath them.

“Take me back,” she demands.

His fingers close forcefully over hers, his blue eyes icy. “Dammit, woman—”

“Take. Me. Back.” She jerks from his hold only for him to grab her again. His grip is harsher this time. Less forgiving. He wraps the fingers of one hand tightly around her wrists and her injury flares, hot and angry.

She attempts a different route, as close to pleading as she’ll come.

“You wouldn’t hurt a lady.”

“Sure would turn in ‘er in for the right price, though.”

He starts them galloping once again towards God-knows-where and she glowers into the mane of his steed. It’s muddy and matted. Wherever he’s been, it’s been a while since he’s been home.

Whatever home means for men like him.

Like her, she corrects.

Arthur Morgan may be less than a gentleman but they’re still cut from the same cloth. Fugitives on the run, never staying in one place too long. It’s the way they live and the way they will die. The life of Magdelyn Marlowe has never been conventional. She carries what little she values on her person, so she won’t miss the dingy camp she has set up east of Valentine. Easily replaceable, nothing to mourn. But she _will_ miss Ember and God Himself can’t help Arthur if he doesn’t bring her back to that horse.

She can’t move at all with his body around her. He’s too big, too aware of every move she makes, and his reflexes are quick. The knife in her boot is warm against her leg but removing it now means revealing her hand and she isn’t sure she’d win.

She’s truly stuck. _Frustratingly_ stuck and at the mercy of a merciless man known as much for the beatings he gives as he is for the criminal company he keeps.

When she finally lets up, ceases struggling to search for a more strategic exit, she huffs. “Where are we goin’?”

“It’s your lucky day. Er, night. You’re gonna meet the gang.”

The van der Lindes, he means. She’s heard of them, mostly from the times she’s passed through Blackwater. It’s refreshing to hear talk about anyone but herself so she remembers it, how the voices dripped with disdain. How big of a failure they’d been.

She goes for the jugular.

“You mean it?” she says, tone steeped in false veneration. “ _My my_. What a privilege.”

“I’d watch that tongue of yours,” he warns.

“Or what?”

He squeezes her wrists, restricts his fingers uncomfortably but she doesn’t wince at the pain. She’s stronger than that. Better than that.

“Them words will get you into trouble,” he mutters, defeated.

It’s an empty threat. He won’t do anything to a woman. He’s gone soft, or he’s always been.

“Not with you,” she goads.

In a moment of distraction, while his horse rears back as a deer darts in front of them, she wrenches her hands from his and throws herself from the side of his horse. She rolls across the ground and pushes herself upright and then she’s sprinting. As fast as she’s ever run, she’s flinging herself away from him into the cover of the forest.

Her breaths come heavier and she rests behind a tree, cradling her throbbing hand and listening intently for the cracks of twigs that signal pursuit.

One breaks, unnervingly close to where she’s crouched and heaving and then a strained silence follows.

_“Maggie!”_

She covers her mouth. When she hears him grudgingly walk back to his horse, too tired or too inexperienced to track her in the dark, she slides down to the ground and despite _everything_ , despite the threat of capture and the shadowy figure that is still retreating, she wants to laugh.

Somehow, she’s free. Her muscles burn and her wrist is sore but it’s freedom that pulses through her slower and slower as her heart calms its nervous rhythm.

Her luck will run out one day but _not yet_.

“Arthur Morgan,” she sighs, biting her lip, “you’re one sorry excuse for an outlaw.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Arthur Morgan needs an outlaw girlfriend and no one can change my mind.
> 
> xoxo


	2. II.

Magdelyn is partial to Rhodes. It feels open, expansive. Like she’s really _free_ there, and she is. She is an anonymous citizen, strange only in her wardrobe choices, for which she receives a fair amount of attention. She seethes silently at the lack of discretion in the prying eyes around her. As if they’ve never seen a woman in anything but a dress, although it may have just as much to do with the unseemly amount of dust on her clothes.

It annoys her because it conjures memories of the back of unkempt, sandy hair, of getaways that almost weren’t. She’d had to scrap those garments altogether for how torn they’d been after she’d narrowly avoided funding his gang’s next disastrous endeavor. If not for Arthur Morgan, she’d have an extra outfit to change into but as it is, she’s down to the clothes on her back.

Her nearly-healed wrist still throbs and she clenches her jaw.

A deep breath and she’s calm again; it smells dry and dusty in this town and it’s grounding. _Absolutely invigorating._

She hitches Ember to a post outside of the general store and slides off gracefully.

“Good girl,” she mumbles proudly, offering her a carrot. The horse huffs and takes her reward eagerly.

She wanders toward the post office and ignores the men loitering outside of the door. It isn’t even 5 in the evening and already one is stumbling drunk. He calls after her in a slur of vulgar syllables that she doesn’t bother deciphering. Her appreciation is made known in the form of a single finger as the door closes behind her.

She rummages through her modest satchel for two envelopes. The return name isn’t hers, of course. She isn’t sure the recipients know to match her face with that psuedonym but she doesn’t think they’re given to curiosity beyond the cash inside. It’s better that way, for them at least.

When she looks up again, it’s to a familiar form. Broad shoulders and legs bent at an easy angle with that same damned hat on his head, looking like it’s been through a fair amount of shit since the last time she saw it.

He notices her, nods in a polite deference he wouldn’t show if they were alone while his lips curl up into the smallest of smiles.

She stands beside him as they wait for the man at the counter to finish his transaction. “Mister Morgan.”

“Miss Marlowe.”

“Here to pay your bounty, I reckon.”

“Nah. Post.” He holds an envelope over his heart, playing the saint, and it draws her eye to the glint of a silver star.

_No._

“God Almighty,” she breathes, shaking her head to be sure his badge is no trick of the eyes, some mirage that will evaporate if she moves just so. Try as she might, she can’t blink it away. “That _fool_.”

He screws up his lips higher and it’s the first time she’s seen him look anything less than the vicious outlaw he’s said to be. It must be the lighting, she decides. The slant of the sun in through the windows that paints him sympathetic or anything but wicked.

He rests one hand on his belt. “Fine man, Sherriff Gray. Recognizes a do-gooder when he sees one.”

She doesn’t know whether to be impressed with his smooth assimilation into Rhodes or discouraged that the van der Linde gang has infiltrated her favorite place. She supposes there are enough drunkards in the sherriff’s office that it shouldn’t be so surprising but those boys bring trouble and destruction wherever they go. Blackwater and Valentine and now, inevitably, Rhodes.

“And when that do-gooder off and died, I s’pose that’s when he settled for you.”

“It’s a goddamn shame all women ain’t so charmin’ as you, Maggie.”

She gives him a black widow smile. There isn’t any use in brooding and their footing is always precarious at best. As if every chance encounter finds them pistols drawn and waiting for the other to shoot first.

“Next!”

Arthur steps up to the clerk and slides him his letter and a few coins. “Thank you for your help,” he calls and stalks out the door.

She rolls her eyes and pulls out her own envelopes, dropping them gently onto the counter. “Don’t mind that sour old man.”

“Course not, ma’am.” The clerk nods and smiles as he accepts her payment.

She makes small talk about weather and gossip for as long as she can stand; it’s never a waste to charm anyone she’s able. It’s come in handy more than once and this particular man seems to take a liking to her. He swallows every false anecdote she gives him. So easy, she thinks, and just as well. It’s better this way.

And then, she’s stepping out into the fading sunlight and squinting, her hand a visor over her eyes. She loses her hats or they get shot off more often than she’d admit. She feels around for cash in her bag—she’s running low but she has enough to spare for something with a wide brim.

“Heya, beautiful, come ova’ heya.”

The lewd man is still there, hiccuping and laughing with his friends.

She balls her hands into fists and tilts her head as she debates the merits of knocking out a few of his teeth. _Just a few._ Her nails dig into her palms, harder the longer he the goes on talking, saying very little in far too many words.

“This man botherin’ you?”

Arthur is behind her, leaning against the building with a cigarette between his teeth.

“Not any more than you.” She takes long strides toward her horse, mind made up to forego the hat in favor of putting distance between herself and this outlaw, but she hears the crunch of dirt under his boots as he pursues her.

“You didn’t think I was gonna let you walk off again.”

“Jesus, Arthur, don’t make a scene.”

“That’s Deputy Callahan,” he asserts.

She spins on her heels and she _hates_ the amused grin plastered on her face but it’s unavoidable. She couldn’t have thought up such a humorous concept as ‘Arthur Morgan, arm of the law’ if she was paid to and yet he goes on insisting. “Oh?”

“Tha’s right,” he replies, crushing his cigarette beneath his boot.

“Be a shame if those idiots found out Dutch and his boys was playin’ ‘em,” she counters, as much an experiment as a threat.

He saunters closer, his light eyes intensely focused on her. Those blue wells are a fragile firm that remind her this man is all talk.

She plants her feet firmly. She won’t move, no matter how close he gets. No matter if the tip of his nose is brushing against hers, no matter how weak her traitorous knees get because _how long_ has it been since a man has gotten this close without pressing his fingers into her windpipe?

Long. A long, long time.

Against her better wishes, she takes half a step back so she doesn’t have to breathe him in.

Arthur’s voice is a low rumble. “The word of a criminal don’t mean much, now does it?”

“Believed you well enough, didn’t they?”

He doesn’t have time to reply before a blonde woman slings a bag into the back of a wagon that must be his. “You ready, Arthur?”

Magdelyn’s gaze travels the length of her body. “I see you have a fondness for women in men’s clothes.”

He grumbles something that sounds like ‘ _didn’t know about that’._ And then, more clearly: “Sadie don’t listen to me.”

“Smart lady,” she brushes her hand down the brim of his hat and knocks it over his eyes as she turns toward Ember and mounts her.

“And just where do you think _you’re_ goin’?”

He says it as if he would stop her. She’s willing to bet he won’t, with weapons or hands or even his words. There weren’t so many witnesses last time as there are now and beyond his principled facade, his freedom is at stake as much as hers if one of his gang decides to pull anything on her in this town.

She’ll leave him to the cloak and dagger of it all if only he will let her walk away. Fair trade.

She gathers the reins in her hands, wrapped around her first once. “Away,” she smiles sweetly. “Miles and miles.”

“If I have to hunt you down again, woman–”

“Won’t be no _again_ , Mister _Callahan_ ,” and she winks for good measure but all it does is embolden him.

“Sure.” He slaps her ass with one hand and she nearly jumps out of her saddle. Ember gets the same treatment. “Leave my town now, go on, both of you!”

And she’s being carried away on the back of her horse before she can say anything more than a frustrated _“Arthur”_.


	3. III.

Saloons are nasty places.

Magdelyn has never grasped the appeal, only ever full of drunken, sweaty men and working girls that she thinks look hollow, haunted, hopeless. Seeing them reminds her that she isn’t so far from the profession herself. Always one botched job away from trading her body for food and shelter, and then, it’s only a matter of time. Someone–bounty hunters or lawmen or Death himself–will find her and put her out of her misery.

It doesn’t matter. There’s no one to miss her and maybe she deserves it.

Most nights, she tells herself that death sounds like the crack of a gun and then nothing. There’s no coming judgement, no roll of thunder. She’ll simply be and then she won’t. A paradise, for an outlaw. For a murderer.

Other nights, she can’t forget. She sees what she’s done, is eaten alive by it, and can’t see a way to absolve her iniquity. If there’s an omniscient being, then surely she’s destined for hellfire, and she can’t deny how fitting a punishment it would be.

Maybe there will be _justice_ in her death. Penance for her sins. Redemption. But the shame and guilt in this life on those rare few nights compel her to find solace in a bottle and she obliges, an accomplice in her own destruction.

She avoids the gazes of the saloon patrons as she storms up to the bar, nightmares blooming behind her eyelids when she blinks. A strong drink has never been enough to rid herself of the rancid stench of blood and smoke but she has already tried everything else and it’s as good a distraction as anything can be.

Leaning against the bar, she relearns how to breathe. The bartender is busy with a rowdy group of men at the corner of the counter and she’s forced into patience. A bad position to be in for a woman so unwell, so _weak_ –and she must be weak because her fingers quiver, trembling so badly that she has to ball them into fists.

She can smell that night. Can feel it clogging her lungs.

She just needs to forget.

It’s this moment that one man finds ideal to approach her, throwing her a yellowing smile as she groans internally.

“Little lady,” he sidles up to her. Far too close, she thinks, for any two strangers.

She keeps her eyes on her fists and shakes her head. “I ain’t interested.”

“Ain’t interested?” he scoffs.

“You deaf or just stupid?”

He makes a face that implies he’s hardly ever refused, though Maggie finds that hard to believe. He’s got all the charm of a wolf and about as much social grace. She’s equally–but pleasantly–astounded that her words have so much bite. She raises her eyebrows and he’s got the good sense to leave, mumbling insults as he goes.

She searches again for the bartender but he’s still preoccupied and someone is _still_ watching her. She feels the curious eyes roaming her face and promises to pull her knife on that same damn egotistical moron.

She turns toward the heavy gaze, prepared to rip into the stranger unabashedly eyeing her, but the rebuke dies on her tongue when her hardened eyes meet the icy depths she has seen before; once or a thousand times, she no longer knows.

“Jesus,” he mutters with a roll of his eyes.

Startled, she quickly turns her back to him. He seems relaxed, if not pensive, and she wonders if it isn’t purely coincidence that he’s found her again. There’s no sign he means to drag her away but still she raises her guard, not foolish enough to believe he would waste an opportunity.

If she knows outlaws, she knows Arthur Morgan. Every person is just a safe to be cracked. Nothing more.

They’re all the goddamn same.

She waits there, eyes on the increasingly agitated movements of her hands, for words that don’t come. She’d thought he would have said something by now, some smart remark at the very least, but his silence is even more alarming than any threat he could make.

Magdelyn tilts her head up towards him and sees he isn’t even looking at her. Isn’t looking at anything. It’s evident in the sag of his shoulders that something has defeated him and he is miles away.

She sighs. “You followin’ me?”

He tilts his bottle to his lips and before he drinks, he says, “Not this time, sweetheart.”

The corners of her mouth tighten as she gauges his response. His chest has deflated from its usual proud swell and the wrinkles at his eyes are deeper. It puts a bitter taste in her mouth that he’s so unrecognizable, fractured beyond identification, as if she really knew him before. There’s no bravado left to war with and she isn’t sure how to act around him anymore or what he even wants.

Maybe he hates saloons as much as she does. Maybe they’re both here just to nurse their wounds.

“You wanna talk about it?” she jests lightly.

He raises himself off of his elbows and stands to his full height, stretching his arms out and groaning. “Not particularly.”

She sighs and signals to the bartender. “Whiskey,” she mumbles and he ducks below the counter to grab a bottle.

Arthur chuckles.

She shoots him a questioning look, wary of the way he smirks around his beer.

“You wanna talk about it?” he echoes.

She snorts and rolls her eyes but privately, she’s relieved to feel him warming, starting to feel familiar again. The Arthur she only just knows is bubbling slowly back to the surface.

The bartender slides her shot glass towards her and takes her coins. Her throat stings in protest as she swallows down pure fire. Immediately, she feels lighter, airy. It’s an addictive feeling. Before her stomach is settled, she’s ordered two more and Arthur shakes his head beside her.

“You’re in the wrong business to be castin’ stones, Mister Morgan,” she says too loudly. God. When had she last eaten?

Leaning towards her slightly, his eyes search hers and there’s amusement behind the cold surface of his irises. “Didn’t think you was a whiskey girl.”

She sways and grips the counter for support. “I _ain’t_.”

“Clearly.”

The shots are slammed before her and she takes the burn expertly; that is, with minimal wincing. It’s nothing compared to the tear of a bullet through flesh and she has felt them both often enough to keep a blank face even as she mourns the sour aftertaste.

It dims all of the thrashing thoughts within her and she smiles to herself. That’s what she’s here for, anyway. Not the taste. Just the numb and pleasant tingle it leaves.

She turns her body towards him but she’s severely underestimated the potency of the whiskey. The motion throws her balance, sends her stumbling backwards a few steps and nearly into another patron, if not for Arthur yanking her back by her arm.

“Lotta whiskey,” he mumbles, watching her warily. “You ain’t plannin’ on ridin’ after this, Miss, are you?”

Her cheeks burn. “I _was_ , but I… I s’pose not,” she says, the words running together.

He sighs, turning back to his beer. “Jesus, woman, you’re a goddamn handful.”

 _That_. That gets under her skin. “Excuse me?”

“You always require so much supervision?”

Maggie drops her jaw. “Supervision?” She leans forward to stab a finger into his chest but, through the haze of the whiskey, miscalculates and hits his shoulder. “Nobody _asked_ you t’supervise me.”

She tries to step away, meaning to prove her self-sufficiency, but the intended effect is lost when she trips over her own feet. She gasps and falls backward until he catches her upper arms and holds her above the ground.

Arthur laughs to himself. “You don’t do this too often, do you? You’re drunk, Miss.”

“Not yet.” She blushes down to her neck and rights herself, tucking her hair behind her ear and smoothing out her sleeves so she doesn’t look the intoxicated mess she is.

He removes one hand from her but the other slides to her back. She’s gone so long without being touched that it prickles her flesh through her shirt.

It isn’t uncomfortable. In fact, it’s a little too comfortable.

“You can let go’a me now,” she shrugs him off.

“Can I? Without you fallin’ over?”

She rolls her eyes. “Yes,” she mumbles, motioning again for the bartender’s attention.

He shakes his head and sighs, dropping his hand. She makes a point to look him in the eyes defiantly when she swallows her next shot and he watches her with a small smirk.

“See? Now ‘m drunk,” she slurs with satisfaction.

“Sure,” he nods.

“What’d’you even care?” she starts, throwing her hands up. They fall to the bar harder than she intends but she’s too distracted trying to form words to be embarrassed. “You can take me to Strawberry now ‘n I won’t even b’able t’put up a good fight.”

“Aw, I doubt even Strawberry would want you like this.”

“Take me in.” She pushes herself off the bar and into his face roughly, uncoordinated, until their bodies are flush. His hands hover beside her shoulders, fully expecting her to fall again. “Just _do it_. Or someone else will.”

“Naw. You’re drunk, Maggie.”

She hiccups. “So?”

“That ain’t fair.” His eyes flick between hers, fall to her lips in for the briefest of seconds. He moves them back up so quickly that she doubts what she thinks she’s seen. Her perception is dramatically slowed by the alcohol in her veins but still far too overactive. His breath is warm, _so warm,_ across her face. When he exhales, she knows he smells like something she recognizes, something familiar. Her nose tingles. “C’mon. Let’s get you a room.”

He holds her arms again and guides her away from the bar and toward the entrance.

“ _Hey_. ‘M not finished,” she protests, digging her feet into the floor.

It doesn’t stop him. Doesn’t even slow him. She really should’ve eaten today because he overcomes her resistance effortlessly. So damn easily that it makes her furious.

“Oh, I think you are, Miss.”

Delayed, it hits her. What he smells like and why it pulls her in. “Y’smell like… cigarettes. Cigarettes ‘n gunpowder.”

“That right?”

“Mmm. You smoke?”

“Yeah, I smoke.”

She spins to face him, almost toppling as he continues forward. He catches her again and curses but she keeps talking as he pushes them along toward the hotel. “Can I have one?”

“No.”

Maggie frowns and squints, trying hard to focus on him and not the landscape moving by at a dizzying speed. “It’d help me sober up,” she argues.

His lips twitch. “Yeah, and so would me dunkin’ you in cold water. That what you want?”

She presses her lips into a line and glares at him. “Hmph.”

Arthur helps her up the creaky, wooden stairs and into the hotel, their steps loud in the empty lobby. The hotel is a surprisingly decent one. Small and quaint, it feels almost like a home and Magdelyn has forgotten what it’s like to have a room for yourself, even for a night. Four walls and furniture that belong to you and that you belong to.

It makes her sad. Even more sad than she was.

Why was she _so sad?_

Arthur walks up to the desk and asks for a room. The clerk eyes her carefully, suspiciously, and eyes Arthur even longer before he finally gives her a key. Maggie reaches into her pockets for the crumpled bills folded there but Arthur waves her away and hands the man some of his own money.

“I got enough money t’pay for my own things,” she asserts.

He guides her up the stairs. One hand on the railing and the other in his, she barely manages to keep herself from tumbling back down. “I’m sure you do.”

“So I don’t need you payin’ for me. Or… or helpin’ me.”

At the top of the stairs, she falls sideways into him. Arthur puts a steadying hand on her waist and that simple contact sends lightning rippling through her, her veins conducting the energy like metal. “Sorry,” she whispers, stepping forward as the walls spin.

She shoves the key into the door, or tries. Her hands won’t do what she tells them to, swerving at the last second and hitting the doorjamb each time. “Shit,” she curses, frustrated. Her cheeks flush, painted a deep shade of embarrassment because Arthur is watching and smiling at her like he’s entertained by the spectacle she’s making of herself.

“Easy, girl.” Arthur takes the key from her hand and inserts it easily into the lock. One twist and the door is open.

She nods, looking down. “Thank you.”

“Sure.” His fingers squeeze her hip in acknowledgment but they dig just a little too deep. Just beyond careful disinterest.

She meets his eyes and waits for the inevitable. Like this, she can be easily taken advantage of. Stolen from or kidnapped or _worse_. Every time they meet, there’s talk of bounty and he’s a fool if he lets her go now.

She’s inebriated. Too drunk and too slow to duel if he chooses to draw on her and he knows it.

Part of her hopes he will. Put an end to all of her running. She’s so _tired_ of it.

He looks at her seriously for a long moment. She has no reason to believe she can read him but he looks almost sad. Almost lonely. And then, he’s tipping his hat and leaning away.

“Have a good night, Miss Marlowe,” he says quietly, and her heart hammers harder at the sound of her own name.

He’s down the hallway and around the corner before the warmth of him fades and she knows she won’t stop craving cigarettes until she gets one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, Mags, you got it bad. [And don't we all.]
> 
> xoxo


	4. IV.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I looooove Arthur’s sassy poker dialogue.
> 
> xoxo

When she sits at the poker table, there’s an audible swell of disbelief. Murmurs about women and gambling that would shame her if she was still under the thumb of societal judgement. She lost her cares for the opinions of men long ago.

No, it doesn’t matter if they offer her their approval. She’ll take their money instead.

It’s fine–better, even–if they’re unsuspecting. It’s just that much easier to draw them in and so much more satisfying to clean them out. So she suppresses rolling her eyes when someone mutters, “lady should try ‘er luck as a workin’ girl instead.” It’s easy leverage.

It gets a few laughs and she feels her own lips turn up. “Aw. S’alright to be nervous, Mister.”

She can now see that he’s drunk, this man. Maggie sizes him up and sees his face is red and warm and drenched in a thick layer of sweat. He’s younger, can’t be past thirty, and wears a wedding band on his left hand. The poor woman. The kind of alcoholic gambler she thinks will be easy to rile.

Apparently, she’s struck a nerve. He snarls at her, defending his unreasonably swollen ego. “I ain’t scared’a no _whore_ with a couple cards in ‘er hand.”

“Then shut your goddamn mouth and play.”

It freezes her up, that voice. Intimidates her in ways the sweaty man before her only _wishes_ he could because that voice was never supposed to find her again. Not here. She eyes the door but to run would be to move past him and she’s certain he would follow.

Never mind that part of her doesn’t want to run at all.

The chair beside her scrapes against the floor as it’s pulled back and it’s none other than Arthur Morgan that fills it. The heady scent of smoke and dust drifts out around him and gags her. He’s been working–or fleeing. The dried red stain at the cuff of his sleeve doesn’t clarify which because he shoots and is shot at even more than she is but even she knows that after a while, it stops mattering whose blood is whose, only that your last goddamn shirt is hopelessly stained.

It shouldn’t make her feel a misplaced sense of camaraderie with him, the only other man at the table so intricately familiar with lawlessness as she is. The only one who knows her real name. But, much to her own chagrin, she still does. He knows and understands, even if he’s after her bounty, and he’s far more human than his posters give him credit for. There’s a shred of decency within him. She’s sure of it, now, because he could’ve already tossed her on the back of his horse–could’ve done _a lot_ of things–and he didn’t.

She doesn’t know what to make of his sudden appearance but she knows he can be as charming as he is lethal so she keeps her head down, angling her face so that the brim of her hat dips where he’ll be looking for her eyes; he _will_ be looking, if he’s here on business.

Beneath the table, his boot knocks up against hers so slightly that she wonders if he means to. “Evenin’, Miss Magdelyn,” he mumbles low enough that only she can hear.

She schools her voice, careful not to betray that his presence feels something like relief. Strange, but he may be the softest, kindest man at the table. Certainly more so than the man that sits across from her, no matter what ulterior motives he harbors. “Christ. How long you been followin’ me?”

He pushes a cigarette between his lips and strikes a match against the bottom of his boot to light it. “Uh… while, I s’pose.”

The dealer passes the cards around and she guards hers in her hands, leaning away from the outlaw beside her. “Ain’t worth your time, I promise you that.”

“We’ll see ‘bout that.” He sniffs and throws a few chips into the center. “Still a _lot_ ‘a money bein’ offered.”

She raises him and from the corner of her eye, he half-smiles. It’s arrogance, most likely, but her pulse still rushes like rapids under her skin. “More’n you’ve ever seen, if that’s how you bluff.”

He smirks at that and laughs quiet and low, his foot nudging hers beneath the table. He’s confident, if nothing else.

The table exposes their hands and her pair of queens takes the modest pot in the center. Eagerly, she scoops the chips toward her chest and sends a gloating smile toward the irritable man across from her, who grows redder by the minute.

“What’s your drink?” Arthur asks.

“Oh, no,” she shakes her head, blushing slightly as she remembers their last encounter. “You don’t expect I’ll let you buy me anythin’ to numb my intuition, now, do you?”

The next dealer passes out the cards and she makes a concentrated effort to study only her hand, to ignore Arthur’s gaze and the way it’s warming her. He pays her the sort of attention she can’t recall ever receiving before and she’s as skeptical and she is flattered.

Money does that to men. She reminds herself that he’s greedy.

_That’s all this is, Magdelyn, you idiot._

“C’mon, Maggie, let me buy you a drink. One drink.”

“I–”

“S’cuse me,” he motions to the bartender before she can get any more words in and calls, “two whiskeys.”

She frowns at him. The worst part is that she wants to drink. On her best days, and in moderation, drink gives her the nerve that she pretends to always posses and sorely lacks. She can’t afford to roll the dice with her bounty hunter sitting inches away, but the whiskey comes anyway and when she splits the second pot with another man, Arthur raises his shot and she wraps hesitant fingers around her own.

“May the best man win,” he says tauntingly, tilting his glass to his lips.

She tosses her own glass back and holds the whiskey in her mouth until it stings. Her eyes water but it serves its purpose. She’s focused. Not too comfortable. “I’ll see your _man_ and raise you a woman.”

Arthur smiles to himself as he shuffles the deck handed to him. She feels her lips curve to mirror his, climb higher on her cheeks the longer she stares. Beneath the table, his knee leans against hers.

By the time the fifth round is underway, she’s three shots in and her pile of chips towers higher than the others. One man has bust out, ceding his chips to Arthur in the only lucky round he’s had. Magdelyn owns most of the rest.

She usually plays quietly. A controlled tongue, she’s found, is better for bluffing. Fewer tells that way. But Arthur–Arthur plays loudly. The man to her left, who she’s heard called Teddy by some of the others in the saloon, folds for the fifth time in as many matches and Arthur isn’t the only one to notice, but he _is_ the first to acknowledge it.

“You ever gonna play?” he goads.

She snorts and covers her mouth with one hand to keep herself quiet. It’s harder and harder as the alcohol settles in her stomach, loosening her muscles and eroding her filter.

The man fidgets. He’s a nervous man, Teddy, and Arthur is imposing even to someone with a thicker build.

 _All that confidence_ , she thinks.

She realizes she’s spoken those words aloud when she feels him staring but he’s more amused than annoyed. Her cheeks are already tinged pink with the warm glow of the whiskey and she wonders if the color is deeper, somehow brighter with his eyes on her. Feels that way.

She tosses a few chips into the center to the frustration of her antagonist–Richard, he’d said–directly across from her. He’s one of those men with a mouth bigger than his brain but his pockets are deep enough that somehow, he’s still in the game.

The dealer lays down the last card and they go around the table and check until it’s back to her. She looks up at her nemesis with a sinister smile and throws fifty cents into the pot.

She can hear his teeth grind. All of Lemoyne can.

He goes all in like the damn fool he is when everyone else has the sense to fold. Even Arthur withdraws, prone as he is to bluffing. He folds his arms over his chest and leans back, watching her from beneath his hat.

She’s drunk and maybe reckless but it’s to her advantage that this man has had two whiskeys for every one she’s downed. They drop their hands and he reveals two of a kind. A measly hand to her flush.

He grumbles something about his luck that she doesn’t hear over the sound of chips clinking against one another as she claims the pot, smug as can be.

“Don’t worry, Mister. You got this,” and she thinks for once Arthur is being encouraging until under his breath, he mutters, “big, dumb moron.”

She loses it then. She tries to muffle her laughter but it’s far too late for self-control.

“What’re you laughin’ at?” he demands, but she only laughs harder when she sees that he’s a dark shade of cherry red that she hadn’t previously known was humanly possible.

Arthur looks pleased that she finds him so humorous. She doesn’t want to. She wants to be angry, should be on her guard because most of what she knows about him is gossip and conjecture and none of it good, but she hasn’t laughed like this in _ages._

“I asked you a question, woman,” Richard bellows, convulsions rippling through him as alcohol and loss mix into an enraging cocktail.

She’s seen it enough times to know how this will end. Still, he’s up and barreling towards her with a velocity she doesn’t expect from someone of his girth before she can properly remove herself from his warpath. She stands and stumbles back but he can’t reach her before Arthur catches his shoulders and shoves him away.

“It’s just a game, buddy.” There’s something menacing in his warning. Without even knowing who he is and how he makes his living, anyone could tell that he doesn’t make empty threats. “No reason to go around hittin’ ladies.”

Most of the patrons are watching the confrontation with bated breath. Small town like this, it’s probably the best thing they’ve seen in a while. Some rowdy newcomers riling up the town drunk is entertainment at its finest.

He looks past Arthur and points one shaky, accusatory finger at Maggie. “No good, dirty–”

“Easy, Mister. We don’t want no trouble.”

She doesn’t know when Arthur grouped himself in with her and started thinking in terms of ‘we’. It’s a little thrilling, if she’s honest. Maybe because she’s so used to being alone. Maybe because beneath the ever-present layer of dirt he wears, she’s noticing–or finally admitting–that he’s actually quite attractive.

Richard doesn’t listen. He lunges past Arthur, reaching out for her, but she steps back into the wall and Arthur rips him back by his suspenders.

“Now, why’d you gotta make this hard on me?” he complains, throwing the man against the wall. His voice grows steadily angrier the more the man fights back, swiping at Arthur’s jaw and managing to get a good hit in. Arthur curls his fingers in the man’s dirty button-up and thrusts him against the wall. “We was playin’ a good game. I was _enjoyin’_ myself.”

“I’m gettin’ the Sheriff,” a young man mumbles, tripping over his feet as he hurries out of the door.

She sighs.

_Might as well make all this mess count for something._

Unholstering her shoddy pistol, she walks back toward the poker table to the man in the corner holding the money. Barrel discretely aimed at his stomach, she pulls the hammer back. “I’m cashin’ out. Gimme everything.”

“Everything?”

“Was I unclear?” she growls.

“Alright, alright,” he blubbers, fingers trembling and clumsy as he hands her the bag of bills and coins.

She smiles down at him, all charm, while she holsters her gun and then tips her hat. “Thank you, handsome.”

Arthur is throwing punches when Maggie pulls his shoulder down, forcing him to lean toward her. “Law,” she says against his ear; the least she can do to repay his timely intervention. “Leave ‘im.”

He grumbles and releases the man to crumble onto the floor.

Richard clutches at his throat and makes a show of wheezing. “Oh, I… can’t _breathe_ …”

“You can breathe jus’ fine,” Arthur dismisses him.

She slinks out the back before the lawmen enter and well before anyone even realizes there’s been a robbery. It’s her specialty: quiet and quick in-and-outs, because it’s her best strategy without the organization provided by gangs.

Maggie hadn’t planned it this way. In her mind, she’d envisioned a night of perfectly legal work around a poker table, no guns necessary. But Arthur Morgan has a way of turning her plans on their head.

He doesn’t look behind them as he pulls her away from the commotion in the building and around the corner. “C’mon. Keep your head down.”

She listens. Mimics him and hides her face with her hat as she follows him down an alley to the hitching posts. “You know, I never see so much goddamn trouble as when I’m with you.”

He grunts in displeasure. “So now _your_ gloatin’ is _my_ fault?” he asks incredulously.

“Weren’t me that called him… what was it? A ‘dumb moron’?”

A rumbling laugh escapes him. “Yeah,” he says, remembering fondly. He presses his back to the wall and glances around the corner to where their horses are hitched. When he’s sure the front is clear, he waves her forward.

She finds her horse and takes the reins, one foot in the right stirrup lifting her enough to slip a leg over the saddle and seat herself. She turns to search for Arthur; somehow, he’s already mounted and waiting and watching her.

He didn’t need to stay. He could’ve bolted as soon as he got on his horse. It’s what she would’ve done and what she would’ve expected from anyone else. So why doesn’t he?

She thought she understood him. The realization that she doesn’t–that he seems to defy her expectations at every turn–is unnerving.

She doesn’t like it. Not at all. They trot out toward the edge of town together, silent and unnoticed, and as soon as she feels like they’re far enough away, she’s breaking away from him.

“Well, Mister Morgan,” she sighs, “it’s been fun.”

“‘Till next time, Miss Magdelyn,” he tips his hat.

Her eyes narrow. “Why do you always say that?”

“Always a next time, ain’t there?”

“Because you _follow me_.”

He nods, smiling easily, bemused as his eyes run over her face. “I do want that bounty.”

His attention–his interest–makes her flush. Silly, she thinks, and tries to dismiss the notion that he’s after anything but the promise of cash in his pocket.

City folk or outlaw, it doesn’t much matter. It’s every man for himself. Universal law.

So when he doesn’t try to come after her, when he lets her walk away with the looming promise of _next time_ between them, she’s confused and and frustrated and without explanation.

_Next time._

Her heart skips a single beat and then races.

He makes a goddamn liar of her because she insists to herself that she isn’t already anticipating it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two touch-starved people. That’s my ship.
> 
> xoxo


	5. V.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s called Whiplash for a reason, y’all.
> 
> xoxo

She counts the bills handed to her–180, 200, 220–and pockets them quickly, glancing around to be sure no one watches from the trees. These early morning hours are prime for lawless criminals like herself and she’s been in the business of thievery far too long not to check and double check her surroundings.

“Nice horses,” the man says as he runs a brush through the mane of one dark thoroughbred.

When he looks up, his eyes roll over the whole of her in a way that cuts her in half. Prime hours for all manner of sins. Her fingers creep toward her pistol but when his eyes slither back up to hers, he doesn’t look the type. Looks less plotting and more curious.

“Where’s the others?”

Maybe it’s the slim likelihood of her–of _any_ single person, least of all female–bringing in three horses at once. Maybe he really is vile, probing so he knows just how much he can get away with. In the end, she doesn’t answer. Just holds his eyes and squints. He looks none too pleased to be working with her.

The feeling is mutual.

She starts walking backwards, the universal sign for distrust. Her voice doesn’t shake like she’d feared it might. She says, “pleasure doin’ business with you, sir,” so casually that he can’t possibly suspect how he makes the hair on the back of her neck rise. She swings her leg up and mounts Ember, breaking eye contact only for the time it takes to scan the charcoal horizon. “I’ll see if I can’t secure you anymore’a them.”

He looks conflicted. It’s good money for the both of them but–

But what?

“Don’t get yourself killed, girl,” he nods once, eyes tight. “Paper ain’t worth it.”

Unconsciously, the muscles in her fingers flex around the reins and she stares blankly at the man, a stranger. Something in his gaze–and she remembers now that it’s _concern_ –beats against her ribs and the hollow cavity beneath them.

She turns Ember toward the trail, shaken and swimming in all of the times she’s been looked at that way–and all the times she hasn’t. Mama and daddy and then sweet little Levi, once he was old enough to know that things could die.

It’s been a long damn time.

She focuses on the leisurely beat of Ember’s hooves and tries to match her heart to them. The constancy of it nearly puts her to sleep. Maggie fights a yawn and turns them towards Rhodes, towards camp, towards rest–and she is two miles out when she catches the silhouette behind her and the offbeat pounding of another set of hooves. By then, it’s far too late.

The rope around her constricts and tugs her backward, off her horse and onto the dusty ground. There will be bruises on her ribs. She can feel the throbbing where they’ll bloom and she groans. Ember rears up and neighs in agitation and Magdelyn curls in on herself to keep from being stomped into the ground.

She tries to lift her arms from her sides to test the tightness of her bonds. She can’t move them farther than a hair’s width away from herself.

Most bounty hunters, as she’s come to learn, are simply fools with guns. The large sum of money on offer draws a great many men to try their hand at tracking and few ever do it well enough to find her. She stays quiet, never makes too much noise in any town, and keeps her eyes down more often than not. Windows to the soul, as they say, if she’s got one. On the rare occasions she’s been found by any, she’s always escaped, usually by the skin of her teeth, but not _once_ has one of those idiots ever caught her.

So it’s entirely humiliating that now, it’s finally happening.

She doesn’t try to barter with him as he approaches. Knows it’s an exercise in futility. Anyone foolhardy enough to come after her is more interested in money than anything else and she doesn’t think what she’s got, even with a fresh take, can hold a candle to whatever her bounty is posted at. Seven grand, she last heard, though that source is less than reputable.

She sees the worn boots sideways from her angle on the ground. They stop in front of her. “Miss Thievin’ Maggie.”

“No, sir, ‘fraid not,” she groans, wincing at the way her side aches when she speaks.

“You damn well look like ‘er.”

She rolls onto her back and squirms against the ropes. “I promise you _you_ won’t look like much’a anythin’ when I’m done with you if you don’t release me.”

The man chuckles and squats to hogtie her. “Don’t get smart with me, woman.”

She thrusts her foot into his shin and he curses loudly. He looks at her, fuming. She’s sealed her fate but it’s satisfying nonetheless. She grins at him like she isn’t scared because fear is fuel he doesn’t need.

“Worthless whore,” he sneers, grabbing her ankles.

“God help you, you _wretched_ man,” she spits in his face as he fights to hold her flailing legs together long enough to wrap rope around them, “I’ll kick every last one of your goddamn teeth out. Don’t _touch_ me!”

It takes him a good amount of time to get the rope tied tightly around her extremities. More than once, her boots knock the rope away, thinking it will provide an opportunity for escape, but all it ever does is earn her a red hand across her cheek and an indecent word about her virtue.

She starts to panic– _really_ panic. There’s no one to break her out if she ends up behind bars but even if she screams, she isn’t sure it would do her any good. This late, the only men on the trail might brutalize her far more than this bounty hunter and it’s the _might_ that scares her; she’s always had a fantastic imagination.

Fear takes her over and Maggie stops fighting. She closes her eyes and her mind concocts nightmare scenarios of what will be done with her now, of every possible way she could meet her end.

Her eyes leak from the sides and spill down her temples until he flips her onto her stomach to restrain her hands. She’s frozen solid. Too terrified to fight even when she knows she should be writhing out of his grasp, no matter how fruitless it may be.

Her face buried in dirt, she’s only aware of the presence of someone beyond herself and her captor by the gallop of hooves. It grows gradually louder, closer and stops within feet of them. The cock of a shotgun makes her furrow her brow.

If this man doesn’t like the intruder, she’s sure she won’t.

“Move along. This ain’t no business’a–holy _shit_.”

The familiar bang of a pistol round echoes through the hills and then it’s only her breathing that can be heard. It’s loud and ragged and gulping as she realizes her bounty hunter is dead, slain by the stranger on horseback without so much as a word.

She holds her breath.

The stranger’s boots hit the ground and the spurs clink as he makes his way over to her leisurely, as if he has all the time in the world. She supposes that’s the privilege of a man, and especially of a killer: to move freely and fearlessly at night.

He bends a knee in front of her face and she twists her head to see just who exactly would kill a man in cold-blood like that. She doesn’t expect to recognize him.

He should be the very last person she wants to see but the sight of his old and beat-up hat, his tarnished gun belt, _all of it_ makes her so foolishly happy that she could cry all over again for altogether different reasons.

“Always good to see you, Maggie.”

“Arthur,” she breathes, choking on the relief he brings.

“Yeah.” He lifts her over his shoulder with a grunt. “It’s me.”

“You followed me,” she tries to put the pieces together, “from where?”

“Don’t matter now.”

Maybe it doesn’t. But how did she miss it? She tries to think back, look for any sign she was tailed.

It can’t really be that he’s just that good.

“Arthur, what– _oof_.” She’s cut off when her stomach folds over the back of Arthur’s horse. Her ribs are so, so sore. They pulse and ache and what’s worse is she’s realizing he clearly doesn’t intend to let her off this time.

Just like that, her gratitude fades, replaced by disbelief.

She hates how he always manages to do what she doesn’t expect. Hates how he pulls the wool over her eyes _every time_.

“You won’t really do this,” she croaks, craning her neck to watch him.

He turns back for the body and she hears the sound of dead weight being dragged over rock and soil as he speaks. “Oh, I won’t, will I?”

She’d hoped not, naively _._ She chastises herself for believing even for a second that he would somehow spare her. What use is honor to a gunslinger?

“I don’t _believe_ you,” she hisses.

Wiping his hands off against his trousers, he climbs back onto his horse. “Oh, believe me, princess.”

He starts them into an easy trot, at first, but he pushes them faster until the trail is flying past her eyes so quickly that all the colors blend into a dizzying blur. She squeezes her eyelids together to stave off the nausea that worsens each time the horse’s hooves touch down but she tastes the acid on the back of her tongue anyway.

She didn’t exactly expect it to be a comfortable ride, but this is unbearable.

“A-Arthur,” she swallows the bile rising in her throat, “Oh God, _wait_ , slow down.”

He glances over his shoulder at her. “What is it now?”

“ _Please_.”

He slows to a stop and dismounts, sighing–growling, more like–as he walks around to her. “What do you want, woman?”

It’s said as if she’s making this hard on him and she’s blown away by the nerve of this man, to make her feel like an inconvenience while he’s ripping her freedom away.

“I’m sick back here, Arthur. Please be decent. Let me sit proper.” He looks about ready to tell her he isn’t even going to consider it so she embellishes the truth. “Arthur, I’m on my cycle, for Christ’s sake. Don’t be a goddamn brute.”

He closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. When his eyes open, he looks at her and then at the horizon and she counts four full breaths between her question and his answer. “No screamin’, no fightin’. You hear me?”

“Course not.”

The nausea subsides the moment she’s righted and seated on the saddle. She may be on her way to be hanged and who-knows-what-else first, but small mercies count for something.

Arthur slips back behind her. It’s a tight fit, especially riding side-saddle like she is. Her legs fall over his thigh and her shoulder presses into his chest. Their faces are almost level; if she turns at all to her right, only centimeters will be left between the two of them. As it is, she feels his breath against her ear. It’s close quarters, to be sure, almost like that first night in Valentine in far too many ways, although this time, her chances of escape aren’t good.

She almost slides off the saddle. Would topple completely were it not for his hands pulling her back up by her waist.

“You okay?” he asks quietly, fingers lingering at her hips as if it would really matter if she’s damaged in transit. She’s cargo. A commodity.

Maggie fixes him with a tight and angry stare. “Real kind of you to ask.”

He looks at her and then clears his throat, eyes moving to the trail as he nudges his horse into a cantor, but not quickly enough. Not before she sees that he doesn’t like this at all, not before she identifies the self-loathing in his gaze and _what the hell is it for?_

She’s met a lot of outlaws from a lot of gangs but none have ever looked so conflicted, so _disgusted_ by their own actions, as Arthur Morgan does now. A weakness that can be exploited. She may keep her life yet, if she can use it against him.

Her mind is a string of pathetic reassurances– _he won’t hurt me, he won’t, it’s alright, he won’t hurt me–_ because that pained and pensive expression he wears makes her think he’s still beyond bringing harm to a woman.

She believes it enough to coax her anxiety down from intolerable heights, enough to ease her to the point that she doesn’t even notice when her shoulders relax and she drowsily leans into him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Every couple has disagreements sometimes. What matters is that you kiss and make up, amiright?......
> 
> xoxo


	6. VI.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you read Still Waters, this is THAT cabin.
> 
> xoxo

He rides them into the forest for what feels like hours until eventually– _finally_ –he pulls them off the main trail toward the silhouette of a cabin. She frowns at the shadowy shape. It’s either his or he’s scoped it out beforehand to be sure it’s abandoned and she doesn’t think the former is so likely.

Then he’s made arrangements for this occasion. He might _actually_ turn her in.

She blows a hair away from where it falls against her cheek and despite the show of annoyance, she’s just a bit paler as she anticipates the end of what has been a dark and pitiful life.

He hitches his horse on the side of the building as she scans the landscape. She can see almost nothing. May as well be blind for all the good her eyes are doing her. If there’s anything useful lying about, it’s obscured in the black night.

“Alright, c’mon.” Firm hands find either side of her hips and he slings her over his shoulder. She grunts as his shoulder digs into her stomach but he’s quiet, as if carrying her is no effort at all.

His palm spreads out against the back of her thigh and she can feel the warm circle through her jeans. It doesn’t make any sense for it to be comforting but strangely, it calms her to a dull simmer and she holds her tongue.

At least, until he drops her onto her ass on the dusty floor.

As soon as she recovers her breath, she’s flinging words because it’s all she _can_ do. “Damn chivalrous, to throw a lady on the floor like that!”

The only hint of his location is the jingle of spurs as he walks around the room. Her whole body tenses, unhappy, robbed of most of its senses. She doesn’t know what he’s doing and it makes her nervous.

“Arthur,” she hisses.

He answers from across the room. “Would you be patient? I’m _tryin’_ to find us some light.”

She _hmph_ s and stares up at the ceiling in frustration. After another minute, there’s finally the sound of a match being lit and then the small flicker of light in the corner grows as he ignites the wick of a lantern.

Once he’s lit a few more, she can make out her surroundings more clearly. The cabin isn’t much; one room with a chair and some tables on one side and a bed on the other, the headboard cracked down the middle. The kitchen is a stove and a few open, empty cabinets in the far corner, like its previous residents had left in a hurry.

No knives. Not a single goddamn spoon. No _anything_ in sight, the way he’d planned it.

She can’t analyze further because he tosses the burnt out matchstick aside and walks back toward her, leaning over where she’s curled up on the ground.

“You gonna run?”

“Would you believe me if I said ‘no’?”

He chuckles at that and kneels beside her, unsheathing his knife to slice through the rope around her ankles and then her wrists. She rubs at the chaffed skin. It’s tender and red and burns at the contact.

He hooks a thumb into his belt in a way that draws her eyes and he notices. “I ain’t gonna shoot you.”

“Oh, _what a relief._ ”

He turns his back on her to rifle through the cabinets and she tracks the shift of every sinew beneath the thinning fabric of his shirt as he moves. He’s certainly powerful. It’s more than an image he projects to keep up appearances. He’s older than her but if it comes to a fight, she’s outgunned and out _muscled_.

Her best hope is mercy, and when he turns and offers her the only can of food he can find, she thinks her odds are fairly decent.

He slices it open and hands it to her, eyes glued to the way her hands rub at the raw skin of her wrists. “Sorry ‘bout that.”

She pauses, can of corn in hand and mid way to her mouth. “Sorry?”

“That’s what I said.”

Magdelyn scoffs. “You’re a real piece of work.”

He falls back into a chair with a soft grunt and slumps down like he’s tired. “I been called worse things, I guess.”

She tilts the can back against her lips and swallows a mouthful of soft kernels. It settles into her empty stomach so satisfyingly that she thinks corn may be her new favorite food.

Arthur removes his hat and places it on the table. He runs his fingers through the length of his hair and interlocks his hands to rest them behind his head, propping his legs up beside his hat. “How long you been this way? On your own.”

“Long time. Most of my life.”

“Mmm,” he nods, a faraway look in his eyes. “Surprised you made it this long.”

She forces down the last of the corn. “I could say the same for you ‘n your gang of fools.”

“Yeah, well,” he mumbles, “might not make it much longer, neither.”

She ponders that statement. It should make her happy, the imminent downfall of the beneficiaries of her capture, but Arthur sounds genuinely distraught and all she can feel is sympathy. Rough as gangs can be, you can only run with someone for so long before they become blood.

“It’s tough,” she offers, nodding and looking into a corner of the room. “This life. It happens.”

He frowns and they both lose themselves in their own thoughts. It’s a sad inevitability of outlaw life, that one day you’ll either be caught or killed. Magdelyn especially had been living on borrowed time. Seven grand is too large a sum to end in anything but the snap of her neck in the gallows; sooner rather than later, it seems.

“What’d you do?”

Her head snaps up as he breaks her from macabre imagination and she’s almost grateful until she realizes what he’d asked.

She stands and raises her brows, a challenge of a smirk growing on her lips. “What do _you_ think I did?”

“Don’t know.” He leans back to better take in the whole of her and one side of his mouth screws up. “Don’t look like a killer to me.”

She lets her smile fade and her face grows somber. “Not a very good judge of character, are you, Mister Morgan?”

“I been wrong before.”

She swallows and her throat feels smaller. Smaller still when he stands and takes a step towards her, his gaze unrelenting.

“It’s… arson. Actually.” She can’t help the way her arms encircle her chest when she says it. It’s still so damn difficult. Time, she knows, does not heal all wounds.

His left brow arcs higher and he says the word like he doesn’t believe her in the slightest. “You. Arson.”

One hand rubs at the juncture of her neck and shoulder that is growing tighter and tighter. “Ask anyone in Strawberry. Burned down a whole farm, a few houses.”

He nods, processing. “Must’a reeeally hated someone.”

She scrunches her lips up and it helps to keep the tears at bay. They burn at her waterline. “Yes.”

“Why?”

Magdelyn looks up to eyes intensely blue and filled with regret. He doesn’t much like bounty work. She knows because _she_ doesn’t. It’s too ironic, hunting someone uncomfortably close to herself, and she recognizes the value in the opportunity presented.

He has questions. She’ll be honest with him.

“Man lived at the farm. If you can call ‘im a man.” She swallows, forces herself to hold his eyes even as the same tortured scenes play out before her. “I truly think I loved him, once. And after so many months, I became pregnant. But he… his wife, he said she couldn’t know. Broke my heart to hear him yellin’ and cursin’ at me like it weren’t even his.”

Arthur squints, in pain or disbelief. She continues.

“He told me I had to leave but I was so young. Too scared to leave my little brother, and with my father so ill, I just… couldn’t. So he beat it out of me. Right there, in his barn,” she grits her teeth. “When I stopped bleedin’, I came back and let his animals out and then I threw match after match in it. Foolish. I couldn’t bring myself to hate him but I hated that barn. I… I didn’t know it would spread so much.”

He sees her obvious pain and out of respect, or whatever equivalent emotion men like him are capable of, he puts space between them. He walks away from her and turns his back, pinching the bridge of his nose, and he sighs.

He hangs his head quietly for a few moments. Her heart pounds as she waits, heavy against her ribs like it might break through, and then he leans back and covers his face with one rough hand, groaning.

“Can’t do this,” she thinks she hears him say, but it’s too low to be sure.

The air has turned thick between them, something like pity in his eyes when he looks at her and she hates it. That isn’t what this is supposed to be.

“And what did _you_ do, Mister Morgan?”

“Robbin’, mostly,” he says distractedly, still thinking too goddamn much.

“Five thousand and the Pinkertons for robbin’?” she fishes, but the black look he gives her tells her he won’t be confiding in her anytime soon.

At least he isn’t looking at her that injured way anymore.

“C’mon. I told you somethin’,” she tries. “It’s only right you tell me somethin’.”

“You still hungry?”

“No. Tell me about Blackwater.”

“I _ain’t_ gonna talk about Blackwater.”

She leans toward him. This wanted man, glaring down at her in that chilling way. He wears a scowl, body tight and rigid, completely closed off but she prods him, unafraid. “How did you make out? Was it that bad?”

“Maggie,” he warns, stepping forward slowly, looking everything like a lion about to pounce as she mocks him.

She steps back once. “Tell me. How much?”

The muscles in his jaw flex and clench.

Magdelyn laughs, short and breathless, searching his eyes as her smile grows. “Jesus,” she says, backing up until her back hits the wall and in the little space he leaves between them, she can feel the angry heat he radiates.

She knows. And his narrowed eyes dare her to say it.

“You didn’t get any of it.”

He slams his fist into the wall beside her head and she jumps and then he’s on her, over her, covering her with one big hand at the back of her neck while the other grips the waist line of her jeans. She _melts_ into him. His mouth and hers are rough and she throws her arms around his neck just to be able to match the force with which he’s kissing her.

His hands travel around to her back and down to palm her ass as he pulls them over to the table, knocking something over in the process that she’s too distracted to identify. When her legs hits the edge, she bends down onto it and pulls him with her. He leaves her mouth only to growl in her ear and leave scorching kisses and the indents of teeth down her neck.

He’s leaving marks and she will leave her own.

His busy lips keep her pinned so she uses her nails to untuck his shirt and scrape up his back. It’s hard enough to hurt. She knows they’re leaving trails of pink beneath his clothes but he doesn’t flinch, doesn’t do anything but bite down on her neck deeper, harder, too hard.

“Shit,” she grunts and shoves him back only to stalk forward and press him against the wall. She reaches between his legs and wraps her hand around what she can manage a grip on through the thick denim he wears. He’s fully hard beneath her fingers and he grips her arms to hold her to him. His eyes are wide and still flaming as he lets out a deep groan and she thinks this must be the first time he’s had a woman this way: wild and rough. They will burn each other up this night and he will shrink first under the heat, she will make sure.

When he has his bearings again, he scoops her up and pivots so that she’s the one between a body and the wall. His lips seek hers over and over but each time, she moves just out of reach, smiling when he grunts his frustration.

“Damn you, woman, can’t you do anythin’ right?” A hand comes up to knot in her hair and holds her in place while he slips his tongue between her teeth. She bites down softly and he finally drops her to her feet to bracket her face with two suddenly gentle hands.

She pushes him back again while their mouths work hard against each other but in the middle of the room, he stops their progress and pulls her down.

Her stomach drops when she topples onto him, a willing mess, tongue still intertwined with his. They only last a moment that way and then he starts to tug her at her gun belt. She goes for his and they hastily rip away each other’s trousers.

She’s not wearing a thing beneath her jeans, a fact that she forgets but one he won’t soon. His breathing all but stops when he sees her nude to the waist and dripping.

“ _H-ell_ ,” he swears almost incoherently, the word broken in two, and the darkening of his eyes is visible in the flickering orange light. It sends a wave of heat through her, seeing him so lost.

“Well,” she pants, “you just gonna sit there, then?”

He rips at her shirt and buttons fly across the room and they are back to hands madly grabbing for each other. They strip each other down and when there’s nothing left, he forces her body down onto his even as she straddles him.

There’s a burn at her hips; she isn’t so flexible anymore. Hasn’t done this in– “God,” she moans, trying to calculate the last time a man’s hand has worked her like Arthur’s is. One finger and then two pumping as his palm brushes her clit. She can’t imagine it’s been nearly as long for him or else he’s picked it up again quickly.

“Beautiful,” he breathes into her ear. “Keep talkin’.”

“Don’ want to.” But her body is weaker than her mind. She rolls her hips against his hand and _yes,_ she’s a goddamn marionette for him. She’ll talk all he wants if only he never stops.

The fingers that aren’t busy trail lightly up over the swell of one breast and tweak her nipple. She can see through the fog of the heat they’re making that his lips are twitching as he watches her reactions. She loves them, those lips, and hates them passionately but to see them tremble under her body is really something.

She can’t allow herself to get comfortable. This is supposed to be a _fight_ but her will is draining out into his hands. If she can’t get angry, she can surely get even and she wraps her hand around the length of him and starts to pump.

He makes a disapproving sound and flips them over so that she’s pinned to the floor, hands above her head. He nips at her bottom lip and then sinks his teeth into the flesh until she whimpers. “Tryin’a goddamn kill me.”

“ _Arthur-”_

It’s supposed to be stern but he takes it as encouragement and lines himself up at her entrance, thrusting into her without any warning at all. She closes her eyes so he can’t see them roll back in her head. He doesn’t deserve to.

“Like that?” he asks and doesn’t move, sits still inside of her and waits for her answer.

She digs her nails into his shoulders. “I don’t like you, Arthur Morgan.”

“You do a little.”

“I _don’t_.”

He presses his lips just beneath her ear and the heat warms her, makes her wonder if he can give her a fever this way. “Say my name again.”

“Why?”

He pulls himself back up over her so he can see her face and thrusts once, sending a violent shiver down her spine. He hums satisfactorily and starts a slow rhythm. She wants to tell him to speed up, fuck her hard and senseless, but there’s _something_ about this. Her vocal cords refuse to work as electric current travels through her skeleton like wires and anywhere she grabs onto him shocks her.

He falls back to her chest and drags his open mouth over her neck, breathing out ragged sighs that turn into the moans of a man tortured.

His hand takes hold of her thigh and guides her up to him and away, establishing synchronicity. It’s strange that they should always be so at odds, so contrary out in the world but here–like this–their hostility is a match strike, a catalyst for something staggeringly beautiful, some kind of unexpected harmony. They thrust together, strong and unhurried, and she can hardly think.

“That’s it,” he encourages, strained.

“ _Oh-_ ” and she almost says what he wants to hear but she will fight it tooth and nail so long as she can.

“C’mon, sweetheart, _please_ ,” he begs against the skin of her throat.

She grits her teeth and rolls them over, once again on top. He doesn’t let her sit tall. One calloused hand holds her at the small of her back so that any attempt to raise herself only results in arching her back.

She grinds against him at a faster pace than he had chosen. She needs release, needs it so bad it hurts, needs–

“Say it for me.”

This time, he’s demanding. They are reaching the edge and his hand is pressing down and most probably bruising her. She can’t bring herself to be upset. There are worse marks to bear than the handprint of–

“Dammit, Maggie,” he raises his voice, desperate as he straddles that line.

He rolls them to the side and over and holds her down as he fucks her with abandon and she is so close– _so damn close_ –to screaming for him. She wants to. Can hardly remember why she shouldn’t. Every time their hips meet, her pulse races faster until it’s near painful under her skin and she _needs_ –

“ _Arthur_ ,” she shrieks in defeat and she falls apart beneath him.

He’s undone by those words and the constricting way her legs wrap around his waist and hold them together. He buries his face against her shoulder and grips at her hips like he’s holding on for life. There’s an intimacy in it. Not the animal way some have spilled into her, like an empty body they could use and fill. It heats her cheeks as the afterglow sets in and they lie still against one another, breathing heavy on the floor. He doesn’t scramble away and she doesn’t push him off. She covers her eyes with one hand as her heart rate slows and tries to make meaning of what they’ve done.

Eventually, he rolls off of her but that’s as far as he goes. His eyes droop as she debates breaking the strangely comfortable silence and then he’s snoring before she can think of anything worth saying.

She can leave. Run. She knows she can. Limbs unbound, doorway open and inviting.

She doesn’t.


	7. VII.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that took longer than expected.
> 
> xoxo

The morning is nothing short of awkward. Maggie wakes to a blanket being thrown across her form, covering half of her face, and she frantically searches for the culprit.

“What the hell?” she growls, her hand over her eyes to block out the harsh sunlight that threatens to blind her.

Arthur looks like a thief caught in the act. He shows her open palms, as if she’d believe he’s less dangerous unarmed. “Sorry. I, uh… didn’t mean to wake you.”

The draft that she feels across her back as she sits upright brings memories surging back, rapid and unforgiving, and she becomes uncomfortably aware that she’s completely bare. She pulls the blanket closer, the sole barrier between them.

Arthur scratches his neck and averts his gaze. “You, uh…”

“Don’t,” she throws up a hand to stop him, “just don’t… talk about it.”

There’s a hint of hurt in his eyes that stokes the guilt in her stomach, but Arthur nods. “Okay.”

Maggie falls back against the wooden floor and sighs. She hears him moving around–packing things. He’s leaving soon and if she isn’t tied up again, then she can only assume he still plans to let her go.

If she’s smart, she’ll head in the opposite direction.

She stands with the blanket still wrapped around her like a second skin and searches for her clothes. When she finds them in a heap on floor, she shoots Arthur a look. “Turn around.”

Wordlessly, he acquiesces.

She dresses in silence, but her thoughts are loud. Most of them are expletives she hurls at herself for letting this happen. There’s no excuse in the world that can make her relent because now she sees the pattern. It’s becoming abundantly clear to Maggie that she has pitiful taste in men.

“I…” he clears his throat, “You gonna be okay?”

Maggie pauses with her pants halfway up. “Just fine, Mr. Morgan. Providin’ I don’t cross paths with any more opportunistic bounty hunters.”

Arthur’s head drops a little and she thinks she spies a smile from her vantage. It’s hard to tell; he doesn’t much smile. “My sincerest apologies, ma’am.”

Fully clothed, she impatiently works out the knots in her hair with her fingers. Arthur peeks back at her and turns when he’s sure she’s decent.

“If you–” he starts and stops, cheeks red. “You shouldn’t be on your own.”

Idly, she humors him. “No? And what choice have I got?”

“You got one now.” He fiddles with the brim of his hat before placing it on his head and then his eyes meet hers unflinchingly. “You could come with me.”

Magdelyn’s mouth opens to say no, _of course_ she won’t go with her captor, but she can’t get any words out. It’s really strange he would even offer but stranger still–she’s actually considering it.

It’s tiresome, always watching her own back. Despite herself, the idea is inviting. Some might even call it practical.

“I’m a bad man but there’s worse than me. I know you don’t like me and I understand if you–”

“Fine.”

Arthur stops his clearly rehearsed pitch short, though she doesn’t know which of them is more surprised. “Uh… really?” he asks, tensed for a punch line that doesn’t come.

“Did you mean it or not?”

“I did.”

“Fine,” she nods, almost giddy but damn if she’ll show him that. _Other people_. Outlaws, at that. No fake names, no hiding. She almost doesn’t remember what that’s like. “Okay. Let’s go, then.”

He’s frozen in place as she ties her hair back and brushes the dirt from her clothes. She’s trying not to think too hard about her impulsive decision but he’s making it difficult, staring at her so surprised.

When she’s presentable, she sighs. “Ready?”

He chuckles so softly that she almost misses it. “Yes, ma’am,” he tips his hat, moving ahead of her to hold the door open.

She walks out toward the horses and this time, she’s sure he’s smirking.

************

* * *

 

Dutch van der Linde is shorter than she’d imagined. He has the air about him of a leader but not much else would hint that he heads a notorious gang. His eyes are narrowed as they scan her up and down and he shakes his head.

“What is this, Arthur, some kind of joke?”

There’s a pang of offense between her ribs and she mutters, “don’t look so intimidatin’ yourself.”

“I seen her with a gun,” Arthur argues. It’s barely true. “Ain’t a half bad idea to keep a lady who knows her way around a rifle with us. Hell, woman can shoot as good as me.”

 _Better_ , she wants to say, but this is hardly the time to get competitive.

Dutch draws his eyebrows together suspiciously. “We already got Sadie.”

“I know it, but Sadie–” Arthur puts his weight on one leg and his hand on his belt the way she’s noticing he does when he’s considering. When he picks up again, he’s quieter. “Sadie’s a widow. I ain’t so sure her mind is always with us, if you get my meanin’.”

“Now that, I believe.” Dutch turns his gaze to Magdelyn and she straightens under his inspection. She isn’t used being scrutinized by anyone that matters and she realizes that she wants to be liked by him. By all of them. She feels more vulnerable then, under the critical eye of this man, than she has in _years_ and her skin grows clammy. “What exactly are you wanted for, Miss Marlowe?”

She glances at Arthur and he nods. “Uh… mostly stealin’. A few horses. Cash. Robbed a stagecoach, once. And I… killed a few men.”

“A few?”

“Most, uh… wasn’t intentional.”

Dutch looks between the two of them with hard eyes. “I don’t like this, Arthur. We got enough of a price on our heads–”

“She’s real quiet,” he insists and takes a few steps forward. “Won’t draw no more attention than we already got.”

He pleads her case so adamantly, and Maggie thinks it has to be the guilt driving him. There’s no other reason for him to invite her into what is, for all intents and purposes, his family.

He feels bad about hurting her. Every so often, his eyes travel to the irritated skin around her wrists and she sees his remorse, laid out plain as an open book. But she’s been alone for so long and Dutch is obviously wary of her. The more she thinks about this, the less sense it makes.

“She knows the area better than any of us,” Arthur adds, as if that point will fully sell her.

“We are on the run, Arthur. The more people we have–”

She nods and interrupts their back and forth. “This really ain’t worth arguin’ over. I wouldn’t want to impose. I’m sorry.”

She spares Arthur a single glance before she starts back to her horse and he looks like he’s about to argue.

“Dutch,” he groans, voice fading the farther away she gets.

She ducks her head and takes long strides toward Ember.

It’s the irrational urge to disappear that tells her she’s embarrassed. Got her hopes up for some ridiculous reason and thought that maybe she’d found community. The rug being ripped out from under her stings.

_You silly woman._

Her shoulder collides with another body and the woman grunts and stumbles back.

“Oh–Jesus. I’m–‘m so–ain’t usually… like this,” and now, dammit, there are _tears_ in Maggie’s eyes. If she looked like an asset before, the illusion is shattered by the stream of salt water down her cheeks.

“Oh…” The woman sees them and looks apologetic. “Did I hurt you, Miss?”

Maggie shakes her head emphatically and sniffs as she dries her cheeks. “No. No, don’t worry ‘bout me.”

“You’re with Arthur, ain’t you?”

“Uh–”

“Maggie!”

Arthur calls after her but she doesn’t turn around so he can’t see how red and wet her eyes are. Instead, she just stares at the woman in front of her and lies. “No. No, I was just leavin’.”

“Maggie,” he says, closer now.

She closes her eyes in hopes that it clears away the evidence of her emotion before she opens them and turns around.

“Tilly,” he nods at the other woman.

She greets him in return and then leaves them to talk privately. Magdelyn doesn’t think she wants to hear him say what she knows is coming.

“You robbed a train before?”

She narrows her eyes. It takes her a moment to understand the relevance of the question and then she sighs and looks at the grass beneath her boots. “Arthur, just stop this.”

“You ain’t gotta stay if you don’t like it.”

“Really, Arthur, I just ain’t–”

“One train,” he borderline begs her. Looks a stupid amount of sincere and promises, “Me, you, a few more guns. It’s good money. If you don’t like it, I won’t ask you to stay.”

She blows out a slow breath as she feels her reluctance start to crumble. “Trains have _guards_. I never worked like this, I… I just don’t know.”

“Won’t let no one close to you.” His eyes are such a cold shade of blue that she believes it. Believes anyone who tries to lay a hand on her will meet their maker.

She surveys the camp with a frown. A few of the others are looking at her but most are too busy to pay her any mind. She hasn’t had friends or anyone on her side for so long. But maybe she wouldn’t fit in with the van der Lindes. She’s isn’t really an outlaw; not like these people are. Not like Arthur. He’s terrifying when he wants to be.

And other times–like now–she can see his bleeding heart.

Her eyes roam over his expectant expression and she sighs. “One robbery,” she yields.

He gives her a triumphant half-smile. “That’s my girl.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Protective Arthur Morgan is italian_chef_kiss.gif
> 
> xoxo


	8. VIII.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was initially going to go differently but then I scrapped that and, well, that’s the process, I guess.
> 
> xoxo

Arthur peers at her anxiously, twisting his neck to where she’s mounted behind him, but it isn’t him who speaks.

“Are you ready?” Javier asks.

She looks between the two men and nods, pulling her bandana into place.

Javier doesn’t seem convinced. He gives a meaningful look to Arthur. “I hope so.”

Maggie raises an indignant eyebrow. It’s one thing for Dutch to scrutinize her. It’s another thing entirely to realize that all or most of the rest of the gang doesn’t expect much from her.

She’s always been better at actions than words. She’ll just have to earn her place. Prove herself, like she’s always had to. It’s a man’s profession, being an outlaw; she’s known it her whole life and never would’ve expected to adopt it herself. But clearly, this job is different. Terrifyingly new. She doesn’t realize Arthur’s “easy, girl” is directed at her until his hand covers her smaller one where it’s bunching up his shirt and the muscles in her fingers relax.

In the most trivial of touches, there’s still a ghost, a phantom of the warmth of two souls utterly alone in a cabin. A strange consonance between two natural enemies: the hunter and prey. She wonders if it’ll last, if he could really have given up the pursuit of all that money just on principle.

Arthur doesn’t flinch from the contact. Doesn’t really react at all. She assumes she’s reading too much into a casual gesture, and she’s certainly overthinking.

The train comes through, chugging steadily across unclaimed land, and Arthur is the first to set off after it. He pushes their horse hard toward the locomotive and doesn’t let up, doesn’t look back for a second to see that the men are with him or to read the visible half of her face.

Never has she even attempted to jump onto a moving platform before, and now, she tries not to think about it too hard. She balances on her saddle and focuses intensely on the spot she wants to land, willing her feet to move.

The split second she’s airborne is terrifying.

And then, with a jolt, she falls onto her knees and scrapes her palms against the wood planks of the train car and she’s stunned for a moment. She breathes short, quick huffs. It isn’t until Arthur rolls onto the car beside her that she remembers what she’s supposed to do.

There’s one guard in the doorway of the next car and he aims shakily at Maggie. He looks mighty young. For the briefest of moments, no longer than a crack of lightning, she sees a flash of Levi in his face and wants to call this whole thing off. It’s not so often she looks her victims in the eyes. This man–this kid–has to have family. Folks that love him. Maggie can no more shoot him than he can shoot her.

Arthur breaks the stalemate. He’s close enough to the guard to wrench the gun from his hand and toss it over the side of the train.

“Don’t be a hero, kid,” he tells him, and then walks past the paralyzed boy.

She follows after him, deeply shaken even though Arthur had told her before they left camp of the danger of such feelings on a job like this.

_“Doubt’ll get you killed,” he said, his hand on her shoulder. “You can’t afford no distractions. Now, you feel anything like that, you bury it. You hear me?”_

_Bury it._

He stops before entering the passenger car to search her eyes. She does the same. He looks worried; maybe he should take his own advice.

An exhale, a nod and he busts through the door, Magdelyn behind him. It has its intended effect. He has the anxious attention of every passenger immediately. He holds his pistol high, and that’s what makes it so believable that he’ll really use it if need be. She tries to mimic that intensity. Tries harder not to see any family in the faces of these strangers.

“Alright, folks, this is a robbery. Gonna need all your cash, your valuables, everything.”

The passengers murmur and shift. Magdelyn hates seeing how scared they look but she loses all her nerve when some of the women start to cry. She isn’t used to robbing this way and doesn’t want to face the realities of such a blatant sin. If Arthur has qualms with this work, he hides it well. So, she focuses on Arthur instead.

There’s a crease between his eyebrows. Agitation, but she thinks it’s all for show. He needs to look that way: hard and rough and mean. She remembers all the times he put that mask on for her before it cracked beneath her hands.

Not anymore.

Now, when he looks back at her, it’s a strange mix of worry and frustration she sees and Jesus, she hates that his mouth is hidden. He’s that much more difficult to gauge.

He must hate it as much. His eyes drift to where her lips sit behind her bandana and linger. When he catches himself, he’s quick to turn back to the people they’re supposed to be robbing. She, on the other hand, has a harder time forgetting the memories he’s stirring up.

_Bury it. Right._

He’s forceful with them and she’s glad her only job is to collect what they offer. She can’t very well see them shiver and still take their belongings. All things Arthur had warned her about.

_“These folks, they’re richer than anyone needs to be,” he’d told her. “Ain’t no reason to feel any guilt.”_

The muscles and tendons in his pistol hand tense and relax as he flicks his wrist, demanding a woman put her money in the bag. Magdelyn is nauseous watching her empty her coin purse.

The woman’s husband glares at Arthur, expression dark as night and resentful. “You’re a rotten man,” he spits.

“Maybe,” Arthur nods. “But your kind–rich, greedy–reckon I can’t be much worse than that.”

That shuts the man up. He doesn’t respond but with a look of disgust, and then he turns his face and accepts his fate, dropping a wad of bills into the bag.

Arthur’s shoulder brushes against Magdelyn’s as he moves forward to the next row of seats. He looks back at her, evaluating, and then clears his throat and turns back into stone. She doesn’t know how he can turn his concern off and on so quickly. It’s as if he’s a different person from one moment to the next and it dizzies her, gives her whiplash.

In the end, it’s adrenaline that carries her through. Arthur does most of the work and then before she knows it, they’re out of the train car and she starts breathing deeper, filling desperate lungs with dusty air.

She catches the ghost of her reflection in a window and her eyes go wide–how _different_ she looks now from the girl she’d been. The reflection seems almost sickly, compared to the young and untroubled thing she was when this way of life was thrust upon her. She’s entranced and a little disturbed by the obvious disparity between who she believes herself to be and who she is. It isn’t until the train rounds a bend that the glare of the sun erases the image and she’s freed and by then, Arthur is pulling her along with him hurriedly.

“C’mon. Train’s slowin’.”

“Meanin’?”

“ _Meanin’_ ,” he peeks out of the train car as if he expects someone to be waiting for them beside the tracks, “law’s comin’. Now you do exactly as I say, you hear me?”

“ _Law_?”

She hopes the edge of panic is lost underneath her bandana, but doesn’t count on it. Thankfully, Arthur isn’t paying attention, anyway. He’s too busy scanning their surroundings as the brakes of the train squeal.

Arthur’s hand comes up, an open palm that she knows means to wait. Just as well; she’s frozen. But then he curls his fingers and shouts _now_ and then she’s running with him into the trees, chased by the insistent hoof beats of what she estimates in her fear to be at least a dozen lawmen.

There’s gunfire–so much gunfire. Her ears are ringing, the thunder clap of bullets resonating in her skull. She runs so fast that she almost runs too far. The thought is amusing; as if there could really be such a thing. But Arthur catches her waist and pulls her flush against his chest as he takes cover behind a thick tree.

He moves his bandana away from his mouth. “Don’t breathe,” he warns gruffly in her ear.

She listens with him as frantic feet try to track their path. Several men speak amongst themselves and venture beyond her hiding spot without noticing she’s not really hidden at all. Only cleverly tucked away. They move covertly when they can, running and ducking behind different trees to keep themselves hidden and it seems to work. 

Maggie lets a slow stream of breath out between her teeth. Only to herself, she admits that Arthur is impressive. Truly good at what he does. And then, quickly as it manifests, the thought is buried.

The law doesn’t linger long. Maybe, she muses, they’re spread too thin for a manhunt. Once their backs fade into the sunset and Arthur motions for her to follow him west, she finds herself still waiting for the catch.

“...that’s... it?”

Arthur puts a hand on her back and leads her forward, deeper into the foliage. They walk for a few minutes alone but he guides them toward distant figures that eventually come to resemble Javier and John. They’ve found their horses. “Did good,” he says.

“We’re done?”

The corners of Arthur’s mouth tug upwards. Not much, because Arthur never really seems to smile too widely, but enough that she knows he’s already shrugged off the robbery. He looks so handsome like that. “Not so bad, was it?”

 _Not so bad._ Maggie smiles back up at him and he gives her shoulder a squeeze.

When they reach the others, John slaps a roll of cash into her hands and tosses one to Arthur. “Here. Your share.”

Out of habit and nothing more, Magdelyn nods and accepts the money. But once she counts it–

“Holy _shit_. You ain’t serious about this.”

Arthur and Javier exchange a look.

Magdelyn looks between the three of them quickly, waiting for one to crack and admit this is a joke, albeit one in poor taste. “You are? You’re serious?”

The boys watch her cautiously, no doubt wondering how she’s taking it. She shoves her bandana away and recounts the money, shaking her head.

And then, she starts laughing.

“Jesus, I–really? All this from intimidatin’ a few people?”

“The _right_ people,” Javier interjects.

Maggie laughs again, eyebrows drawing together in question when she looks at Arthur to confirm that somehow, this is all real.

He nods once. “You did good, girl.”

A boldfaced lie; she knows she did nothing.

But she can’t contain herself. There’s an unexpected secondary rush that comes with success. She feels like jumping or screaming–has to do _something_ with all of this energy, so she launches herself at Arthur. He lets out a surprised _oof_ as he catches her, stumbling backwards a little to keep his balance.

Maggie squeezes her eyes closed as she clings to him. In the background, she hears Javier and John shuffling awkwardly, but Arthur stays rooted.

He pulls back, tries to look at her. “Uh… you okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, sorry.” She drops back onto the ground and adjusts her shirt, staring long and hard at the buttons so no one else can see how overwhelmed she is.

For some reason, the van der Lindes seem to bring this side of her out often.

Once she’s back in the saddle, seated behind Arthur, she blinks back grateful tears and presses the back of her hand against her cheek. It’s burning up. Some combination of the work she’d done, the heat of the day, and knowing she has full pockets and people waiting for them–for her.

A good feeling, all things considered. Warm and welcome. Because for the first time in a long time, the present is too comfortable for her to hate the past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Couple robberies, amirite. What better bonding activity??
> 
> xoxo


	9. IX.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, y’all, I’m aliiiiive.
> 
> THANK YOU FOR THE KUDOS OMG 100 I NEVER EVER IMAGINED 100 PEOPLE WOULD READ MY DUMB FIC <333
> 
> {Canary–Joy Williams} is Maggie’s song. I figured it out. Listen if you feel so inclined.
> 
> ALSO thank you sm tiesthatbind1899 for kicking my ass (nicely) to finish this chapter and betaing and sending me Arthur Morgan memes, ily!!!
> 
> xoxo

When she and Arthur get back to camp, the sun is setting, and above the sound of clinking glass and friendly jibes comes Dutch’s booming command.

“Everyone, _quiet down_!”

She realizes most of the gang has a bottle in hand. They turn to listen when Dutch speaks; even Arthur looks up from hitching his steed to pay attention.

“It appears we have a criminal among us,” he starts, examining a paper in his hand.

There’s laughter from the others that sounds slightly drunken, despite the early hour. Magdelyn looks at Arthur, who shrugs and looks past her to Dutch. He doesn’t appear to know what’s going on any more than she does.

“Miss–” Dutch holds up a bounty poster– “ _Thievin’ Maggie_ , they call her.”

Maggie goes red; redder when they start cheering for her, of all things. “ _Oh_. No, I–”

“Now, we are all thieves and degenerates. But some of us… some of us are more renowned than others.”

One of the girls whistles for her and and the men holler and clink their beers together. The shame comes at that moment, but it’s washed away more quickly than it’s ever been. These are people who know what she’s done, who she is, and don’t seem offended by it.

Arthur, least of all.

She jumps at the hand she feels on her back and Arthur is quick to remove it. “Sorry. I…” He bends his elbow and scratches the back of his head, looking lost and uncomfortable. “You… uh, need anything?”

“What?”

She’s well aware their every interaction is now awkward and fumbling. Arthur was more comfortable hunting her down than he is taking her in, but he’s trying. Searching for his footing and treading carefully around her.

“Gotta be hungry,” he says.

Maggie _is—_ hungry and parched and wholly drained. It hits her all at once and she wonders if that’s what all of these jobs are like. If they take from you, drain you until you’re empty. If you’re left robbed of as much as you’ve taken, in some universal law of karmic exchange.

She stutters and stumbles through her response. “I– I could– Yeah. Sure.”

He seems relieved to have something to do besides hover over her. Arthur leaves a sudden coldness in his absence that confuses her. Then, as she looks around, watches all the socializing and celebration, she realizes why; that she doesn’t yet know these people, even if they know her. Arthur is the only one she’s had any interaction with, and not all of it good, but she still clings to him as if she’s forgotten her social graces because she hasn’t met new people in _so long._

She sits on a log on her own near the fire, trying desperately not to look as out of place as she feels. Like a stray dog, her mother would’ve said, but it’s been years and years and years since she heard that voice. She knows exactly how many but she can’t remember the way it would sound around those words anymore.

A red-headed man sits–or more accurately, _falls_ –beside her, laughing at a joke she didn’t hear. “Well, now I see why they call you that—Miss Thievin’ Maggie. Pleasure to meet you. Name’s Sean.”

“It really wasn’t me. Arthur and, uh,” she struggles for a moment to remember the names of the others, cursing herself for making a terrible first impression, “the other boys, they did the work. I’m sure I was more of a liability than anything.”

“Aw, don’t sell yourself short, sweetheart!” He drapes an arm over Maggie’s shoulders and pulls her into him. His breath smells like whiskey. “Those idiots couldn’t rob a blind man without gettin’ themselves thrown in a cell. Fact, last time we sent them out–”

“What _the hell_ you doin’, MacGuire?”

Sean and Maggie both look up to Arthur, a grimace on his face and two bowls in hand.

“Calm down, English, I was only tellin’ her the truth about you.”

“Oh, we tellin’ the truth now? In that case–”

Sean laughs nervously and claps Magdelyn on the shoulder. “Be seein’ you around, then, Maggie. If you need company–”

“She won’t,” Arthur growls.

Sean stumbles away, walking backwards and winking at Maggie. “You’re an angry bastard, Arthur Morgan.”

Arthur fills the empty space beside her, settling and sighing as he hands her a bowl of stew. “Sorry ‘bout Sean. Don’t pay him no mind, he’ll leave you alone eventually.”

Magdelyn scoops up spoonfuls of the stew and lets it spill over back into her bowl. It doesn’t exactly look appetizing but it’s more effort than she ever puts into her own dinner and it’s reminiscent of the home-cooked meals she used to have. “I didn’t so much mind him. Seems friendly.”

“Little _too_ friendly.”

It’s a dead giveaway. Things piece together slowly in Maggie’s mind–begging Dutch to make room for her, running Sean off, even as far back as their poker game–but the full picture comes eventually and she sees that Arthur does not easily let go. He will fiercely protect what he has and what he wants, and she finds herself somewhere in between those. She catches Arthur’s eye and they both look away quickly, shyly, down into their bowls of what is allegedly stew.

A man at the campfire takes out a guitar and the others start goading him to play something. It’s all very friendly and warm, the atmosphere lit up by sparks and smiles as Maggie watches, from the outside looking in. She considers what it is _she_ wants, a question she hasn’t been at liberty to ask herself in ages.

Every so often, her eyes meet an unfamiliar pair across from her as they sing a song she doesn’t know. She makes sure to smile but the men don’t smile back. She has some idea why.

Arthur eats his dinner in silence. He was quiet on the ride back to camp and has stayed quiet since, a brooding presence at her side, warding off trouble like a scarecrow. No one else dares  approach her but one of the girls waves to her. The one she had run into earlier, when she was a mess of insecurities. Tilly, if she remembers. Maggie waves back and it feels like belonging. Feels _right_ , something snapping back into place, something missing found.

“How you feelin’?”

Magdelyn drinks, hoping words will come to her, but it’s all unnameable, a great tangle of gratitude and nostalgia. It knots her stomach up but it isn’t the worst feeling. “Me? I… don’t know.”

He gives her a grunt of understanding before he tosses back more whiskey.

A few minutes pass and she observes the others, trying to pick out everyone’s role in this gang. There are quite a few older men than she had expected. Even a child. It’s precisely that that convinces her this is more than a band of thieves. It makes her eyes sting because she’d thought she lost this, her chance at family, and she’d accepted that because hadn’t she earned it? She’d dug her own grave and then laid herself in it.

“That’s the reverend,” Arthur tells her.

She looks up at him, blushing because she’s been caught staring or because she has Arthur’s undivided attention. Maybe both. But he seems to sense that she’s nervous so he leans into her to speak without being heard by anyone else, a private moment for only them.

“Reverend Swanson,” he continues, pointing. “Not much of a reverend these days, I reckon. No church would have him. He’s more morphine than man some days but I ain’t really qualified to judge.”

At that moment, the reverend loses his balance and tips, planting face-first into his sleeping bag. He doesn’t get up and Maggie loses her composure, laughing into her hand to keep from calling attention to herself. Arthur laughs, too, his shoulder bumping hers. It’s quiet and brief but has she ever heard him laugh before?

“That there’s Uncle.” He points to someone else. An old man, snoring in a chair, and she smiles because he looks like her grandfather used to, head back and mouth open. All old men sleep the same way. “Useless bastard. Says he’s got _lumbago_ , whatever the hell that is. Can’t do nothin’ but lay around, apparently.”

Maggie smiles widely and Arthur’s own smile grows with hers. He goes around pointing out all the others in the camp and she tries desperately to keep the names straight but they never stop drinking and the alcohol whisks them away almost as soon as Arthur utters them.

“That feller–one who went robbin’ with us–that’s Javier. Can’t play poker worth a damn but he’s a decent enough shot.”

Maggie raises an eyebrow. “He can't be any worse at cards than you are.”

Arthur grins, the playful kind where one side of his mouth lifts higher than the other. “I’ll pretend for your sake not to hear what you just said, Miss Marlowe.”

“Pretend all you like.”

He points to another man. “Charles, over there, he’s a real good man. Best one here, probably. We’d starve without him. And Sean–”

“The poor man you about _mauled_ earlier?”

“Yeah, well, he had it comin’,” Arthur mumbles.

In the firelight, Arthur looks menacing, almost possessive. That thought makes her warm again and she takes another swig, disguising the cause of her flush. He keeps telling her about the gang but he only recovers some of his lightheartedness. She figures he burned up the rest in his jealousy, if that’s what it is.

Somehow, they end up on their own, backs against a tree just outside of camp. Distant enough that they can still see firelight but far enough away not to hear the others, that their most private thoughts can drown out the rowdiness and the voices still celebrating.

Neither looks at the other. Their company is felt by the silent passing of a bottle and the slow and heavy breathing that comes with too much liquor.

She’s thinking about home again, like she always does when the sun sets, when decent people are home with their loved ones. Maggie misses having parents, being a child. She misses scolding Levi for climbing trees. She remembers warm beds and lullabies the creaking of an old house and now, she has none of it. A deafening silence.

Arthur looks at her like he wants to say something. But words, she can tell, do not always come so easily to him. He opens his mouth, closes it, takes a pull of whiskey and passes it to her.

She picks at the label before she works up to drinking it. Nasty stuff, really, but it gets the job done.

“You, uh… reckon you’ll stay?”

Magdelyn smiles at nothing in particular, and then it turns sour. “Where else would I go?”

“Ain’t you got a family still?”

“After everything–all the damn mess I made and all those years ago–” She takes another long sip of whiskey. “I don’t guess I’m anyone’s family anymore. ‘Specially seein’ how I… I wrecked someone else’s.”

Arthur is quiet, considering, and then his words come out angrier than she’s ever heard him. “He get away with it?”

There’s a beat skipped as she thinks about that night again and all that led up to it. All the broken promises, the blood and tears, all consumed in fire. She exhales a shaky breath.

“Yeah,” she whispers. “He did.”

She thinks she’s beyond saving, because if she’s honest, she isn’t sorry for her sin. She’d do it over; _liked it_ , even. Liked the control she had with a match between her fingers. Liked the revenge. But destruction can never really be tamed. She destroyed _too much_. Lost everything, and forgiveness doesn’t come easy. Eleven years and she’s still trying not to be so heartsick, trying even harder not to picture the child she could have now.

“I had a son,” Arthur says weakly, as if he’s having the very same thoughts, thinking too much about the unchangeable past. As if they’re connected, some fibers of themselves sewn together, and now, it all makes sense.

Maggie looks at Arthur with so much pain in her eyes. His are distant, unfocused, seeing things and people that don’t exist anymore.

It’s the understanding that does it. The moment where neither of them is anything more than broken pieces and solace is found in their silent agreement that things aren’t right, that the world is ugly. She leans his head against his, only a little at first, softening in their shared pain—so deep, she doesn’t think she could explain it, but Arthur doesn’t need her to.

He starts to feel heavier. Arthur leans onto her more and more and she holds him up. His nose brushes hers, wet with his tears, and some of her own fall. They let their sadness mingle for the moment. It’s enough to have company when she goes to that dark place, tender still like an old bruise not yet healed.

She kisses him first. It’s merely a press of lips against the corner of his mouth that she had meant as comfort. But when she pulls back barely an inch, he chases her and they each fall into it just as passionately almost instantly. His arms coil around her waist and roll her over, beneath him, their legs already intertwined.

He’s sloppy and eager, kisses her like he’s on a deadline—and maybe they are. She knows the gang will worry if they can’t find them but God dammit, it’s so hard to care about anything other than the heat of his skin against hers and how it makes her forget.

The realization that she’s missed this is unwelcome. _This_ isn’t even anything. They get worked up and take it out on each other and that’s all. There’s nothing to miss, unless she’s really grown so desperate over the years that a warm body is all she wants.

His mouth hovers over hers, stealing her breath and swallowing it down but never closing the charged distance. She looks up at him in inquiry but he’s almost too close for her eyes to focus on. He’s looking back at her, hazy with want, but still waiting like he believes she’ll change her mind.

This ridiculous man. She thrusts her hips forward and weak-kneed, he falls heavily against her, fingers digging into her thighs.

There are times she believes everything she’s heard—that he’s cold-blooded, heartless, relentless in his pursuit of anything valuable. Back on the train, he’d looked the part and she’d realized how rumors are born. And then there are times—times like this—where he’s a goddamn gentleman. When he asks if all of this is okay, fully prepared to peel himself away if she says it isn’t, and his fingers stroke her face, her sides, her hips, reverently and without any sense of entitlement.

She tells him with her tongue that this is perfectly fine and he responds instantly, greedily, but not quickly. Their kisses turn deep and lazy, and then, they stop altogether. Arthur is already snoring by the time Maggie’s falling heavily into sleep. It’s not pleasant, outside on the hard ground, but it is without the distinct, gnawing loneliness that usually tears her up at night. No, curled into Arthur, she falls into the black easily, and she is a strange sort of comfortable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pearson cooks a nasty ass stew, sorry not sorry.
> 
> xoxo


	10. X.

The camp seems to rise with the dawn, hungover or not.

Everyone has their roles. The women in the camp are always sewing and washing, the men guarding and hunting. From the moment the sun peeked over the horizon, Arthur was off and doing one chore or another. The gang never seems to run out of work for him to do.

Maggie would’ve liked to speak with him, apologize for making a fool of herself the night before—she feels no small amount of shame for their drunken encounter—but he was up before she was.

Busy, perhaps, or just avoiding her. It’s too soon to tell.

Maggie has no idea what she ought to do. She has so lost her sense of place in her years on the run that she doesn’t know where to fall in, whether she ought to help the women or rob with the men, though she is certainly more used to the latter.

“Miss Magdelyn.”

When she turns at the sound of her name, she comes face-to-face with Miss Grimshaw, a name she only knows from hearing the girls say it, usually with venom.

“Would you help the girls with the laundry? They’re down by the lake.”

Looking at Arthur, he is still knee-deep in his chores. Throwing sacks of grain over his shoulder and lugging them over to Pearson.

Their eyes connect for the briefest of moments and then he breaks away. A bad omen, she thinks, because it has to mean regret.

Maggie forces a smile. “Sure, Miss Grimshaw.”

She wanders over to the lake. The girls are giggling and gossiping as they work, a pile of bloody, stained clothes beside them. Maggie joins them wordlessly, grabbing a shirt and soaking it in the water.

Every so often, she steals glances over her shoulder to see what Arthur is doing. Sometimes she catches him staring back—at least, she  _ thinks _ she does. He looks away so quickly that she doubts herself.

She’s not even sure why she cares.

The blonde one–Karen, she thinks her name is–notices. “So. You and Arthur.”

Maggie scrubs the shirt harder against the washboard. There’s so much mud caked into it that it feels futile, but it’s a good outlet, if nothing else. “Not really.”

“I never seen him with a woman before. Didn’t think he wanted that no more.”

“He don’t,” Maggie says. “I don’t.”

She laughs and the other girls smile. It feels like a private joke Maggie doesn’t get.

“He’s certainly sweet on you,” Tilly insists. “Wouldn’t have brought you here if he wasn’t.”

The way she says it is so sure, as if it’s obvious, but when Magdelyn looks back at Arthur and sees him chopping wood, oblivious or entirely indifferent to her gaze, she wants to scoff. He could not possibly be less interested.

She grits her teeth, focuses on washing. On the stubborn stain that  _ won’t come out. _

“I think it’s nice,” Mary-Beth says gently. “He always seemed lonely.”

Maggie scrubs even harder, is about to say she thinks Arthur is just fine on his own when she pushes too hard and tears straight through the shirt she’d been working at.

She holds it up, examining the gaping fabric. Leave it to her to make a good first impression. “ _ Shit _ ,” she sighs, praying it’s not Dutch’s.

Tilly gives her a friendly smile and waves a hand, dismissing it. “Oh, don’t worry ‘bout that. We can sew it up. The boys don’t mind.”

She almost doesn’t want to know but she asks, “Whose is it?”

Karen makes a noise of disgust and rolls her eyes. “That one’s  _ Micah’s _ .” 

Of course it would be. The one man in camp it seems no one can stand and she’s managed to get off on the wrong foot with him already.

Maggie helps the girls finish washing and then Mary-Beth points her toward the sewing kit. She threads the needle fine but she can’t remember the last time she patched up anything. It’s almost as if she’s forgotten where to start.

Maybe she made the wrong choice. Maybe she should never have stayed, useless as she’s turning out to be.

She wonders if there’s a place for her anywhere, if she will always feel homeless.

She is trapped with her thoughts for only for a few minutes, has just tied off the crooked stitch when Charles finds her and puts her out of her misery.

“Magdelyn.”

“Hey. Charles.” Her stomach sinks. Her mind races, fumbling for an explanation for the torn shirt.

Charles doesn’t seem to care. “Goin’ out on job soon. Arthur mentioned you might want to join us. Could use another gun.”

She looks across the camp, finds Arthur near the horses, busying himself as usual. Why he couldn’t just ask her himself irritates her to no end.

She glares at his back. “Oh, he did?”

“We’re headin’ out shortly, if you wanna come.”

“Of course.” Maggie stands and marches toward the horses. “I wouldn’t miss it.”  


 

* * *

  
The job, it turns out, is intercepting a coach filled with supplies—medicine, ammunition, and weapons the Raiders stole. Some poor traveling trader, shot dead and robbed.

None of them feel very bad for putting those Lemoyne bastards six feet under.

It’s an easy job, ambushing them. There are two men on the wagon and four guards on horseback. She shoots down two in the time it takes Charles and Arthur to finish the others. She was never that good with rifles, always found them hard to control with how meanly they buck, so she’s impressed to have helped at all.

They didn’t need her for the job; Charles and Arthur are more than capable. She doesn’t know why Arthur wanted her here, especially because he doesn’t speak with her or even look her way beyond what is absolutely necessary. She is about as bothered by it as she is dumbfounded.

It’s not as if he needs to court her. They are both a little too old and a little too damaged for that but the very least he could do is tell her he wants nothing to do with her anymore. Clear the air and let her down easy.

She won’t wait for the ax to fall.

Charles takes the wagon, says he’ll stash it somewhere, and Arthur takes Maggie to a nearby town. They can’t meet up with him right away. Too suspicious, Arthur says, if anyone saw them. They wait for him in a saloon amongst the rowdy night patrons—some are drinking, some gambling, some buying a woman and a room.

Arthur orders a drink and buys her something to eat. He hadn’t asked if she was hungry— _ why won’t he talk to her, dammit _ —but there’s a tremble to her hands that he noticed even before she had.

She clenches her fist so she doesn’t shake so terribly and gives Arthur a questioning look he ignores.

They sit at a table near the door. The whole place smells like smoke and piss and she’s none too excited to be there, nor that she draws eyes.

If she were alone, it would be much worse. Even with Arthur there, some men can’t be bothered with politeness. One in particular can’t seem to look away. The way he stares makes her shiver.

When she doesn’t have anything to hide behind, no hat or bandana or even darkness, she feels cornered. And cornered, she can bite. She gives the man a look and hopes he sees it for what it is: a warning that she is not to be trifled with. Not some working girl who will overlook his manners for a price. But what men respect most is other men and he does not remove his gaze until Arthur wraps an arm around her chair.

He has a lot of nerve. He can’t even look her in the eye for longer than a second anymore but apparently, he won’t stand for her being ogled.

Somehow, she knows all the things that Arthur says are for her really aren’t. It’s evident by the way he angles himself between the looker and herself and by the frown she sees when he does. It upsets him, she realizes; some would call it jealousy. Arthur keeps his eyes on his whiskey, looking as if it has personally offended him.

“What on earth are you doin’?” Maggie questions him.

He takes a drink. “Eat your food,” he grunts.

“It’s just a simple—”

“We ain’t havin’ this conversation.”

The knowledge that he is embarrassed and in full-out denial of it brings her to blush. She leans back in her chair and crosses her arms, thinking about all the hell she could give him. Or better yet—the hell the boys would give him.

She has never been the one holding the cards until now.

“So now I can’t be looked at?”

Arthur glares at her. “He weren’t just lookin’.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Sure I do.”

“How?”

He bristles, fidgeting in frustration. His arm has still not moved from around her. “Men just—got a way of knowin’ what other men is thinkin’. That’s all. You’re goddamn welcome.”

“Okay, what was he thinkin’, then?”

“Nothin’ too bright and nothin’ decent.”

Maggie scoffs and rolls her eyes. She’s flattered, irritated out of her mind, and still unsure how one man can make her so many vastly different things at once. She can’t say much about how relationships are supposed to be, knows even less about whatever undefined thing they have, but it is suddenly very clear that Arthur Morgan treats her like she is something precious. His eyes are never far from her and she knows that he will worry if she is away from him for long.

It’s a foreign concept, this protectiveness. She’s been the only one looking out for herself all these years.

Perhaps it is just as foreign to Arthur. They are both so unsure of themselves, and the way he doesn’t leave any room for argument about his territorial actions speaks louder than anything he could say.

Arthur looks over his shoulder.

“Stop that,” Maggie hisses and grabs his arm, “you’re  _ embarrassin’ _ me.”

“I’m just checkin’ he’s keepin’ to himself!”

“That isn’t necessary, Arthur.”

The man in question leers at them and Magdelyn ducks her head. Her mortification paints her cheeks as she huffs. “Let it alone. Please.”

Arthur just grins. “Why?”

“You’re gonna start somethin’ over nothin’.”

“I won’t start a thing. Won’t be no trouble long as he learns some manners.”

Magdelyn studies Arthur, left without anything to say. She doesn’t want to argue. She’s too grateful to push back. She has always hated wandering eyes and hasn’t ever felt comfortable around strangers. Her guard had been up longer than she realized, to the point that she only notices it when it’s gone.

For the first time in a long time, she can let someone else assume that burden. And Arthur, it seems, will do it whether she allows him to or not.

“Jesus, Arthur,” she sighs.

“What?”

“Would you make up your damn mind? I know we—well, just because we…” She feels her skin sizzling as she searches for the right words. Instead, all she has are flashes of memories that make her lose her train of thought and then she’s lost and staring at Arthur. Once she is able to shake the haze of him, she says, “You don’t gotta pretend.”

He doesn’t seem to be pretending, not at all. She doesn’t think he’s the kind of fool who knows  _ how  _ to pretend, if his very life depended on it. No, Arthur is genuine in these moments, only the two of them alone. It occurs to her that he may have been pretending most back at camp when he paid her no attention whatsoever, and  _ that _ is a thing she doesn’t know how to reckon with.

Arthur looks away and she can see she has embarrassed him now, the way he blushes. Not pretending, then. Definitely, certainly not.

“Do you… you really…” she fumbles for words to fix what she has broken. If she’s honest, she’s never been much of a pretender herself, “Maybe…” she says quietly and sighs, “maybe we should.”

He just snorts.

Maggie raises an eyebrow, slightly offended.

“You don’t want that. Believe me.”

“Don’t tell me what I want.”

Arthur leans forward, invading her space and her senses all at the same time. He doesn’t always smell the same. Now, he smells a bit too much like blood for her liking—but then undercurrents of  _ him _ , the musky scent she has come to associate with Arthur Morgan, is there all the same, and unfairly intoxicating.

That shouldn’t matter, though. She’s already laid her cards on the table, admitted that she wants this and if the way they always gravitate toward each other, always end up somehow with their tongues in each other’s mouths, is any indication, then he is just as big a fool as she is.

“I’m no good for you, Maggie. All the bad things I done, they’ll catch up to me sooner or later.”

“They might. But your bounty isn’t quite as large as mine, now, is it?”

He shakes his head. “You don’t know what you’re sayin’.”

“Neither do you. Yes or no, Arthur.”

He looks pained and she knows she has finally trapped him. She will force an answer out of him yet.

“Magdelyn,” he grits his teeth. Awfully reminiscent of another night, with tensions high and a question he wouldn’t answer.

“Tell me what you want.”

“I don’t—”

“Christ, just answer me!”

“ _ Yes _ , goddammit!”

A long, uncomfortable silence follows in which Maggie looks at him and gapes. She’s a little impressed to have forced it out of him and quite surprised at his answer. Despite how sure she was, it’s still a shock to hear it voiced, that Arthur would rather have her than his pride.

But she hadn’t thought about what to do once she coerced his confession, doesn’t know how these things are supposed to work.

“Alright,” she swallows. “Then… then fine.”

“Fine.”

“Kiss me, then.”

He looks up, surprised, choking on the whiskey he was nursing. “Kiss you?”

“You didn’t seem to have such a problem with it before.”

He looks almost like he will. Like he  _ wants to _ , but he only stares at her lips and then downs the rest of his drink. 

Arthur is a private man. Left to his own devices, he will not touch her again for heaven only knows how long and she was never very patient. Her best course of action is to take matters into her own hands, so she does. Leans in slow and kisses him softly, surprised that there is as much spark in that as there is in their more intimate moments. 

It feels a lot like falling, and she reckons she is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 2 of this series is something I’ve been planning for a long time and I’m really really excited about. I hope y’all enjoy it! It’s already up so click below for more Arthur/Maggie (:
> 
> xoxo


End file.
